


Primum Non Nocere (First, Do No Harm)

by SapphicScholar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/F, Some angst, Space Dad, chosen family, doctor!Alex, slow burn sanvers to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2019-10-29 02:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17799653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: What if J’onn J’onzz didn’t take Jeremiah’s final request to “take care of [his] girls” to mean join the DEO and later recruit his daughter, but instead moved in next door to become a mentor figure and friend to the Danvers women?A canon divergent AU in which Alex ends up running an underground alien medical clinic and Kara fights to be Supergirl in a world where the DEO never stopped thinking of all aliens as the enemy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Important A/N: We’re going to pretend real Hank Henshaw looks different so that J’onn can look the same because I can’t separate David from his character because he’s just so good in that role. 
> 
> AN 2: I’ve had a plot outline of this fic for about a year now and didn’t know if I was ever going to write it, but then it matched rather perfectly with the #SanversWeek Day 6 prompt for different careers, so I figured why not post the first chapter? Normally I wait to have most chapters completely written and edited before I start posting a story, but this time we’re jumping right in. That means I won’t be on the same consistent posting schedule I normally am, and there will be more time than usual between some of the updates. I appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy!

Eliza just barely heard the knock at the door over the din of the blender whirring and the television still playing and Alex’s music blasting because of course it could never be enough to have only one source of noise going at a time. She tried to swallow the irritation, taking deep breaths, convincing herself with every inhale that more oxygen would push back the tension headache she felt clamping down around her skull.

“Girls!” she called out. “The door!”

She strained to hear over the television and the music, but there were none of the telltale clomping footfalls that would suggest Alex was storming her way downstairs while also making the inconvenience of it known to all, nor the scurrying steps of Kara, still made slightly nervous by the unexpected, like a visitor Eliza hadn’t prepared her for.

“Girls!” she yelled to no avail.

With a sigh, Eliza toweled her hands off and walked toward the door. When she pulled it open, she found a man she’s never seen before—tall with brown skin and a warm gaze that would have made her feel safe in the days before the DEO showed up at their home in the middle of the night and threatened the life she knew. With one last glance behind her, Eliza stepped outside, unwilling to let anyone near her children before she knew more. “Can I help you?” She felt the tightness in her voice down through her throat, the way everything ached with the effort of producing sound.

“My name is J’onn J’onzz.” Eliza’s brow furrowed slightly as she tried to place the accent. “I just moved in next door.”

“Oh.” Eliza nodded her head up and down, trying to remember how to affect some semblance of pleasantness after months of skating by with tight half-smiles and basic civility. She’d noticed the “Sold” sign slapped over the “For Sale” one in the McPherson’s yard, though she didn’t remember any moving vans. Perhaps they’d come later.

J’onn clasped his hands in front of his body, bowing his head. “In the interest of not hiding things, I made a promise to your husband—a promise to do what I could to watch out for you and your children.”

“Who are you?” He had a good few inches on her and far more muscle, but she would die before she let that organization drag away another member of her family.

“The…organization your husband worked for—was made to work for?” Eliza nodded, scrutinizing his careful language. “They were hunting me in the Andes.”

As much as she wanted to keep a cool façade, she couldn’t quite help the gasp at the memory of her final conversation with Jeremiah before the call came in telling her that he had been killed while out on a mission. “Do you mean to say—?”

J’onn let his eyes shift to red before blinking them back to brown once more. “I’m happy to speak more with you, but I think it would be better if we were not outside for it.” He reached down into his pocket then, pulling out the metal chain Jeremiah wore his wedding band on while out on missions—his small act of disobedience in the face of the no-jewelry policy of an organization that would have him hide every part of his family, of the people that inspired him enough to push through it all, day after day, his mantra always, “Keep them safe.”

“I—come in.” Eliza gestured toward the door, trying to swallow past the tears that were normally left hidden in too hot showers and empty corners of large shopping center parking lots.

They shuffled through the door, Eliza shepherding him into the kitchen. “I’ll ask that you keep your voice down.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to upset your children.”

And so Eliza sat and listened to J’onn’s quiet stories of escaping a home planet torn apart by a genocidal war, of spending whole lifetimes hiding out in mountains and rainforests and deserts, of sharing Jeremiah’s last few minutes on this Earth with him and promising to protect his wife and children when it became clear he wasn’t leaving Peru alive. She felt her hands curl into fists at the story of her husband’s death; suspecting that the DEO hadn’t given her the full story did little to prepare her for the reality of learning that one of their own had killed him.

“I would like to be helpful to you in whatever way I can.” J’onn hesitated at the sight of Eliza’s hand sitting on the counter in front of him, raising his own hand to cover hers before pulling it back. “I know the pain of losing a family member, and like your Kara, I know what it is to be a refugee on this planet. But I cannot pretend to know what your husband intended when he asked me to take care of you, nor do I know whether that help would be welcome.”

Eliza forced herself to nod. “I suppose, perhaps you might want to stay for dinner with us?”

“Only if it would not be an imposition.”

“No, no, it would be nice to—” Eliza struggled to complete the sentence. Have a fourth body at the table to make the glaring absence a little less obvious? Have another adult over who knew the pain of losing a spouse, a partner, and wouldn’t expect her to be perfectly okay? Have company to coax the daughter she feared she was losing into something like polite conversation—really, she’d take _any_ conversation at this point. “We’d love to have you.”

“In that case, please, tell me how I can help.”

“It’s”—Eliza stumbled over her usual reassurances that it was fine, she was fine—“actually, would you mind chopping a few vegetables?”

“Happy to.” He reached out and took the knife and cutting board, making a small workstation for himself at the corner of the counter. As he chopped, he couldn’t ward off the melancholy mood that came with the first moment of domesticity he’d enjoyed since Mars, since the days before the White Martians came for them, dragged them off to the camps, separated him from M’yri’ah, K’hym, and T’ania. He’d fought so hard to keep them safe, then kept himself alive on the off chance that they still were, only to be left alone—first on Mars, then on Earth.

“Are you alright?”

J’onn blinked slowly as Eliza’s voice filtered through to him, light and silvery amidst the sticky thoughts making moving hard. “I was thinking of my family.” He’d never understood the human fascination with lying, particularly to those with only the best intentions.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

He nodded, muttering a quiet, “Thank you.” There was no use in saying _It’s fine_ because it wasn’t fine. It was a lie to wave off her concern and tell her _It’s been centuries now_ because no amount of time would erase their memories. But he could thank a woman who would live with some of those same emotions for the rest of her life. And he would fight to make sure she didn’t learn the pain of losing her daughters too.

“If you ever want to share, I’d love to hear about them.”

“Maybe one day.” He didn’t know when it would be, but he could picture it already. Sitting with Eliza, hearing stories of Jeremiah before the DEO, reminiscing about his own family, the years of happiness he’d shared with M’yri’ah, the way K’hym’s and later T’ania’s birth had changed their lives, bringing them a level of joy they’d never imagined, even as they spent sleepless nights terrified about the rumors they’d heard of some threat coming, the prophecies men like J’onn’s father had foretold.

“I’m going to let the girls know we’ll have company for dinner tonight.”

“Do you want me to do something with these? Or do you eat them like this?” J’onn held up his bowl of chopped vegetables. He’d been around too many civilizations with tastes too varied to risk guessing.

“Oh, if you don’t mind tossing them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, then they’ll go in the oven.” She indicated the tray and the oven mitt, though a part of her wondered if he’d need it, or if, like Kara, he’d shock her by reaching in and pulling out a hot pan with no amount of fuss.

The visit upstairs to tell Kara and Alex went as she expected. Alex barely looked up from her notebook, then gave a curt nod with nothing else. Kara smiled and said she was excited, but couldn’t quite hide the nervous energy as she made a beeline for Alex’s room the moment Eliza stepped away. They had each other, at least. She tried to tell herself that was enough. They’d been there for one another in the days when Eliza couldn’t bear to face the world, couldn’t handle the idea of her daughters who needed a pillar of strength seeing their mother, broken and hollow, a mere shell of a person. And now, well, now they seemed to gravitate towards one another, even if Alex lashed out at Kara with almost the same frequency and fury as she did at Eliza.

Once they sat down for dinner together, the room sank into an uneasy silence. Eliza hadn’t offered up the full story of how J’onn knew Jeremiah, wanting both him and the girls to meet each other without the weight of those obligations on the living from promises made to the dead.

“How do you, um, like the neighborhood?” Kara finally asked, spearing her green beans with a bit too much force and chipping the plate.

“No complaints yet.” He shrugged and smiled at her. “Then again, I’ve only been here for a day.”

Kara took a more careful bite. “What do you do?”

“I…well, I used to work for the police.” It was the closest equivalent. “These days I’m thinking about a career switch. What about you two? What do you think you might want to be when you get older?”

“Oh! I, well, I’m not sure. I guess there are so many options, it’s hard to…what if I choose wrong?”

“Luckily you have plenty of time. I’m sure no matter what you do, you’ll be great at it.” J’onn turned his attention to Alex, recognizing her from Jeremiah’s photo. She was older. Harder around the edges. A hardness born of anger and indignation at a world that dared to take something away from her before its time. Jeremiah’s words came rushing back to him. “She’s tough.” The words contained so much more than their two syllables. A promise, perhaps, that she would be okay without him, that she would be there to shoulder the weight of the pain. And she was, but J’onn wished she didn’t have to. “What about you, Alex?”

“Doctor,” Alex muttered, not looking up to see her mother’s proud smile or the way her younger sister gazed at her with wide eyes, hanging on every sound.

“A hard job. Important one, though.”

Alex let out a grunt of acknowledgment around a bite of chicken.

The rest of dinner passed in a similar series of interview-style questions and stilted responses. When they finished, J’onn helped to carry the dirty dishes into the kitchen, following Alex’s example in loading the plates into the dishwasher sideways and dropping the utensils into a center compartment, forks up, knives down.

As Kara and Eliza carried dessert out, a helicopter flew low overhead, the whole house rumbling slightly. _Crash_. Kara was on the floor in an instant, picking up pieces of broken plates with edges sharp enough that any human’s hands would have been bleeding. Kara’s were merely trembling, turning the chips of ceramic into dust between her fingers.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Eliza whispered like a slow, steady chant. “We can get new plates down, you’re alright.”

“Kara?” J’onn’s voice wasn’t loud, but it seemed like an explosion in a space this tight, when it felt like the walls were caving in around them. “Maybe I could help you? Sit with you and do a few meditation exercises I’ve learned. They could help someone…like you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Alex snarled, her small, slight body suddenly between J’onn and Kara. “She doesn’t need your help.”

J’onn watched as one of Alex’s hands unclenched from its fist, extending out behind her until Kara clasped it, her own still trembling but the grip loose enough not to crush the bones.

“I didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort. I simply meant that I too have been overwhelmed by things on your planet.”

Three pairs of eyes snapped up to meet his gaze—one shocked, one warring with anger, and another full of unvoiced questions about whether he was sure he wanted to do this.

“Did you know?” Alex rounded on her mother.

Eliza nodded. “He’s a friend…was a friend of your father’s.”

“From _there_?”

J’onn decided that Jeremiah’s word choice might be a bit out of date. Tough, sure. But fierce seemed more accurate. “No. There, as you say, does not think well of my kind.”

“And what is that?”

With a deep breath, he let himself shift into his Martian form. “I am the last son of Mars.”

“Wow,” Kara breathed out.

Alex looked impressed despite herself, but the mask soon slipped back over her features. “And what? You think you know better just because you’re not from Earth? It’s not like you’re from Krypton too. You can’t come in and try to take Kara and—”

“I would never dream of it. This is Kara’s home. You are her family. I merely… Your father was a good man. I intend to keep my promise to him to watch out for you in whatever ways you want.”

“We don’t need you.”

J’onn nodded. “Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps Kara does.” He turned to face her. “I have found certain meditation styles helpful for drowning out the excess noise of this planet and its inhabitants. If you ever wish to learn, I’d be more than happy to help you.”

Kara’s fingers twisted in her lap. “Do you…do you hear all the sounds too?” There was the sound of the grass growing and the foundation creaking and the wind groaning; the neighbor’s oven timer beeping; the news playing down the block; a baby crying two streets over, the shrieks and wails piercing through the defenses Kara tried so hard to keep up.

“Not quite like you do. My people, we can hear thoughts. I don’t—”

“What?” Alex looked stricken, her already pale face blanching. “Mom! You let him in here? Knowing that?”

“Alex, I—”

“No, fuck this.”

“Alexandra, language!”

But Alex was little more than a retreating figure storming outside, letting the heavy door hang open even as the screen door slammed shut with a rattle of glass panes and thin metal.

“Perhaps I should go explain what I meant to her, if that’s alright with you?”

“You’re welcome to try,” Eliza sighed, rubbing at her temples before bending down to gather the forgotten pieces of china.

It only took a few minutes for J’onn to find Alex sitting by the ocean, her knees pulled into her chest, shoes sitting beside her, toes curling in the damp sand.

He sat down a respectful ten feet back, letting his own fingers stretch and flex in a dry patch of sand.

After several long minutes of silence, Alex craned her neck slightly to see him. “Why are you here?”

“I thought you might appreciate knowing that my powers are not like Kara’s. She hears everything. For the most part, I hear only the loudest of thoughts. The screams of anguish or anger or pain. Anything else I would have to choose to hear. And”—he held up a hand—“I do not make that choice lightly. In fact, I have only made that choice three times in the past five decades.”

“Oh.” A long beat of silence. Alex scooted, turning her whole body a few more degrees in the direction of J’onn. “So why’d you say you knew what Kara felt? You don’t.”

With a sigh, J’onn looked up into the night sky. “I’ve been on this planet for centuries, Alex. I’ve been here through plagues and famines and wars that seemed like they would bring the whole world to its knees. There have been times when every emotion, every thought, is screamed out, anguish blanketing whole countries.”

“Oh,” Alex repeated. “Do you think…would your thing help her?”

“It might. If she wants to learn, I think it would be worth trying.”

Alex nodded. “It’s hard for her. Being here. She’s not the only one like you are, but she may as well be.” There was that hardness again, making her eyes flinty, her features sharper than her years should allow. “If you could help her, I guess…I guess you could come back up to the house with me.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

Alex shrugged. “Whatever. If you’re gonna help her…”

J’onn stood up, dusting off the excess sand from his pants. “You know, if there’s anything I can do for you, I’m not only here for Kara.”

“What? You know how to surf?”

A wry smile twisted at the corners of J’onn’s mouth. “No. I do, however, know how to fight with technique.” His gaze dropped to Alex’s knuckles, still bruised from a fight with some of Kara’s tormenters earlier that week. “Not that I would encourage violence ever, but I can guess you had cause.”

“Kara.”

The full weight of that truth hung heavily in the air between them.

“Well, my offer stands. For that or anything else I might be able to offer in the way of help or guidance.”

Alex gave a quick nod of her head, before trudging back up the beach, shoes in hand. After several yards, she turned around. “You coming?”

“Oh. I didn’t realize—of course.”

Alex didn’t say good or wait or even slow down, but J’onn felt welcome all the same.

When they got back inside, Kara was seated on the couch with Eliza, some rerun of Cat Grant’s talk show playing on the screen as Kara grinned at the witty, well-timed, sometimes cutting remarks, mouthing some of them right along with her, catching the cadences of a language that could still be so unfamiliar no matter how fluent she was in the words and the grammar.

“Well, come on.”

Once more, J’onn found himself following Alex, this time into the living room, and sinking down into a comfortable, worn sofa. A few minutes later, a plate was passed to him with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and two perfectly round cookies. He bit down into one, flavors bursting across his tongue. “Oh…this is very, very good. What is this?”

Alex snorted as Kara’s face lit up. “They’re called Chocos! Aren’t they the best?”

“They…” J’onn paused to take another bite. “They are my new favorite.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting with me on the update! Life's been a little crazy, but chapter 3 should be up sooner--perhaps early next week if life cooperates

Over the next few months, life in the Danvers household began to shift—slowly, sometimes nearly imperceptibly, but shift it did. The grief that had permeated the walls of their home didn’t disappear, but its sharp edges dulled slightly, fissures appearing in its once airtight seal.

The default at dinner was no longer silence broken only by tentative attempts at conversation and brittle, angry retorts. Pizza night no longer meant a twenty left on the table with a note from Eliza saying she wouldn’t be home; instead, it meant chilled pizza dough bought from the store with an array of toppings laid out along the counter and a pre-heating oven warming the house. A few nights a week brought J’onn to their table as more than a fourth mouth to feed. He brought with him chocolatey sweets that won Kara over within days, bottles of wine and aromatic bags of coffee beans to be shared with Eliza while Alex and Kara did their homework, attempted Earth recreations of old family recipes from Mars that managed to intrigue Alex long enough to interrupt days of defiant silence.

Late working nights moved from Eliza’s lab to the home office. She learned to exist once more among the traces of Jeremiah’s life—old notebooks full of the chickenscratch Eliza had deciphered during the first year of marriage, his unfinished experiments doomed to a life of incompletion, the father’s day cards and kitschy Best Dad Award Alex had purchased for him as a kindergartener still littering the corners of his desk. With tears prickling at her eyes, Eliza cleaned out the vials now moldy with useless samples, took stock of the progress reports that could be salvaged, put together an inventory of what she would need to continue with those projects they’d once dreamed of undertaking together but would now see Jeremiah relegated to the acknowledgements, all sentimentality edited out during peer review. And on the nights when the girls were busy but she was not, she let herself reminisce on the good times, spent hours with J’onn trading stories of falling in love and building a life and grieving its loss. And with every story shared, the overwhelming sadness inched backwards, each moment of laughter with her girls and happiness with this new friend prying back the cloying grasp of loneliness that had curled its way around her.

Each weekend, Kara woke before the sun rose to meet J’onn down on a quiet alcove of the beach where he sat with her, helped her practice deep breathing, sinking into a meditative state. After the first few weeks, he began helping her learn to stay grounded while she opened up the senses she normally worked so hard to clamp down on. She learned to hone them, to use them in a directed way that didn’t crush her with a rush of sensations. She sat with a hand pressed down into the beach, feeling every tiny abrasion of every grain of sand, letting their ridges and creases tell her the story of the rock and stone they once were, the lives they’d had before time and erosion crumbled them nearly into dust, bringing them to where she was. She let that hand in the sun-warmed sand ground her as she opened her hearing, listening to the murmur of the tides pulling the ocean out, the wind rippling waves across the surface of the water, the quiet bubble of underwater life, the low, slow rhythms of the earth’s plates shifting infinitesimally beneath them. She let herself taste the briney breeze, the sunscreen particulates that lingered in the air from days gone by, the slight ashy aftertaste from an old bonfire whose tendrils of dissipating spoke she could still see floating up into space.

And Alex was grateful for everything J’onn did for Kara. Hell, she wouldn’t say anything about it, but she was also grateful to him for bringing back a version of her mother she didn’t think she’d ever see again—perhaps hadn’t seen in full since before Kara’s arrival. Not that she was always like that now, but there were glimpses, moments when Alex could see the pride in her mother’s eyes, could feel the connection in the warm hand clasped in hers, could hear something other than rebuke and disappointment when she talked about wanting the world for her Alex. The gratitude for J’onn and moments of love for her family mingled with the anger still burning hot and bitter in her gut. But that anger at the world, that indignation expanded in its reach. What had once been bitterness about the fact that the world, some God too cruel for her to ever think about trying to believe in anymore, had taken away _him_ , had taken him away from _her_ , became something communal. A pain and anger that a part of her family had been ripped away from _them_ —a shift that helped her to begin seeing the frisson of pain underlying those times her mother turned away from her, the traces of an anger turned in on itself humming underneath all of Kara’s insistences that Alex didn’t need to stick up for her at school, didn’t need to put her body between Kara and her tormenters.

As for J’onn, the Danvers weren’t a replacement family—they’d never promised to be, and J’onn had never wanted that—but it still felt like being part of something bigger than himself again, something warm and loving, a place where he didn’t have to keep his guard up at all times. After so many centuries of not even living—hiding, existing as an object of fear and loathing—something that had hardened and fossilized inside of him seemed to crumble. The gut reactions towards lying, towards making himself less than slowly loosened their hold on him. With the Danvers, being honest, revealing his true form and the extent of his powers didn’t end with him staring down the barrel of a gun. Eliza’s curiosity was the kind that led to questions, to offers to try to make life on this planet more bearable, not to dissection tables and cruel experiments.

On a foggy Tuesday in April, J’onn’s cellphone rang. The area code was familiar, even if the number itself was not. “John Jones,” he answered, the accents of his home planet evacuated from the clear speaking voice he’d learned to use in his work as an independent consultant—a job he didn’t love but took to pay the bills without arousing suspicion.

“It’s Alex.”

“Oh. Are you… Is everything okay?” He checked his watch. It was only 1 in the afternoon, far too early for her to be out of school.

“I need you to come get me.”

The edge in her voice dared him to ask any questions, and he couldn’t help but feel as if he were being put to a test of some kind.

“Where are you?”

“School.”

J’onn bit back a sigh. Even if it had been centuries, it felt like only days since he’d been a father to teenage girls determined to test the growing boundaries of their independence. “I’ll be there in 20.”

“Kay.”

“But Alex? I will want to talk about what happened.”

He took solace in the beat of silence before the click of the phone being placed back down in the cradle.

It only took him 15 minutes to arrive and find his way through the hallways to the cluster of administrative offices. An older woman with hunched shoulders and a jewel-toned glasses chain draped around her neck shuffled over to him. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to pick up Alex Danvers.”

“Are you…?”

“I’m their neighbor. Eliza was in a meeting, so Alex called me to drive her to Eliza’s lab.”

“Oh. Okay.” The woman nodded to herself as soon as the words Eliza and lab came out. Apparently that was enough detail to reassure her. J’onn wondered how many afternoons had played out with a harried-looking Eliza bustling in to retrieve Alex instead of him.

One quick call to another office later, and Alex was being walked towards him, a heavy backpack slung over one shoulder and a bruise darkening the skin under her cheekbone. J’onn caught sight of the scraped knuckles and wondered who it was to mock Kara this time. She seemed to have been doing so much better lately.

Alex didn’t meet his gaze, but she moved almost instinctively to his side when the man behind her began talking. Something about “only so many second chances” and a two-day suspension that J’onn couldn’t help but think was a rather useless punishment. Why deprive someone of learning time? Didn’t American children try to do that enough themselves? Still, he nodded in understanding while the man who never even introduced himself droned on and tried to dismiss them.

“Excuse me.” J’onn forced himself to smile in that conciliatory way he knew was needed for dealing with certain types of people. “The person who did that”—he gestured at Alex’s purpling cheek—“to Alex—the same punishment has been given to them, correct?”

“Oh, well, you see, this had been a first offense, so it’s not quite commensurate, and—”

“I think I must have misspoken. I meant to say, the same punishment _will be_ given to them. And to that, I’m sure your response would be something about confidentiality, yes? Obviously I can understand that, so I’ll leave you to confirm it with Dr. Danvers when you speak to her after Alex and the other student return in two days.” He placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder and guided her to the door. “Have a good day, Mr. Simmons.”

He managed to hold in the chuckle at the man’s confused attempts to remember when he’d introduced himself until they were out in the parking lot.

He waited until they were on the road to turn his attention to Alex. “Want to tell me what happened back there?”

“Uh, yeah, I think Mr. Simmons nearly shit himself.”

J’onn bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself to mimic Eliza’s stern, “Language!” earning himself an eyeroll in the process. “You know what I mean.”

Alex shrugged. “The usual.”

“Why call me? I know you’ve had your differences, but Eliza—er, your mother has been more understanding now that she knows you’re sticking up for your sister.”

Once more, Alex shrugged.

J’onn drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. “How’s Kara doing?”

“Fine.”

“Really? She’s normally so shaken up when these sorts of things happen.”

“She’s fine.”

“Still, I imagine she might want to join me for a bit of meditation after dinner tonight. Perhaps I’ll suggest—”

“No.”

“No?”

“Don’t talk to her about it.”

J’onn glanced over at Alex at a red light, finding her slumped down in the seat, her feet tapping incessantly at the floor of the car. “Alex, if something serious happened to her, at least your mother should know about it.”

“Kara doesn’t know, okay?” Alex mumbled, picking at a frayed thread on the knee of her jeans. “It’s not—it wasn’t about her.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“You will need to tell your mother, you know that, yes? Two days is a long punishment, and I won’t lie to her.”

“Kay.” They drove in silence for a few more minutes before Alex’s gaze shifted from her knees to the windows. “Where are we going?”

“I thought you could use some ice for that bruise.” J’onn tapped his cheek.

“We have ice at home.”

J’onn hummed. “I thought, perhaps, it would be helpful to ice it from the inside as well,” he explained as they turned into the parking lot for an ice cream shop they’d all gone to after pizza night the week before.

“I’m not Kara. You can’t bribe me into telling you things with ice cream.”

“Oh. So you don’t want any?” J’onn shifted the car into reverse. “My mistake.”

“No!” Alex cleared her throat, a light pink blush spreading across her cheeks. “I—I didn’t say that.”

After purchasing two ice creams—one double-scoop cone of chocolate chip cookie dough for Alex and a single-scoop bowl of chocolate chunk for J’onn, plus a small plastic cup full of ice and napkins for a makeshift ice pack—they settled in at one of the outdoor tables, the fog having rolled back out to sea enough to leave the air slightly hazy but not unpleasant.

For a few minutes, they sat together without saying a word. J’onn had learned to give Alex space, not to mistake her silence for the silence of Kara’s that begged to be broken with interested questions, just waiting for some invitation. No, with Alex it was best to be present but quiet. Sometimes it opened up into a conversation. Other times it went nowhere. Either way would be fine.

Alex had gotten all the way down to the cone before she spoke, sounding out her words around a carefully nibbled bite of the papery thin sugar wafer. “People suck.”

J’onn nodded. “They can.”

“I guess…I mean, people make assumptions about you all the time, huh?”

“They do. Back when I lived in my true form they thought they knew the kind of thing I was, and now, in the skin, the face I choose to show to the world, they have a whole new set of assumptions about me, yes.”

Alex nodded, crunching off a chunk of cone and getting a smear of ice cream on her nose. “Prom’s in a couple weeks.”

“Oh? That is…a dance.” He tried to remember the movie Kara had chosen a few weekends ago. He attempted to appreciate everything for its merits, no matter how hidden or subtle they were, but he couldn’t help but agreeing with Alex in her assessment of it as “fucking awful,” even if that brutally honest review did get her sent to her room for the remainder of the evening.

“Yeah. Some big thing for juniors and seniors.”

“That’s nice.” Alex wrinkled her nose. “Are you planning to attend this prom?”

Alex’s shoulders raised, then fell. “Dunno.”

“This prom…you take a date to it, right? To be royalty?”

Alex let out a snort of laughter, nearly choking on the last bite of her cone. “Prom king and queen. Well, that’s for seniors, but even if I could be, I wouldn’t want that.”

“Ah, of course.”

“And you don’t need a date. People go with friends.”

“That sounds fun. You could go with the friends you surf with in the mornings, then?”

The smile curling up the corners of Alex’s mouth vanished as quickly as it had appeared, her shoulders slumping forward.

“Or not.”

The already scuffed toes of Alex’s shoes dragged along the concrete beneath their table. “That’s—I wanted to do that.”

“But they do not?”

“Jackson’s already going with his girlfriend, and Raul doesn’t want to go, and Meg’s only a sophomore, so it’s just me and Vicki.”

“Ah, and you don’t want to go with just Vicki?”

“What’s so wrong with going with Vicki?” Alex snapped, her arms curling around herself, and her features suddenly sharp.

“Nothing.” J’onn dragged his hand across the back of his neck wondering how it was he could deal with crisis management but not a teenage girl. “She’s your friend. I suspect you would have fun.”

“That’s what I said.” Alex let out a huff of air. “But Rick asked me.”

“Oh…so you’re going with him instead?”

“No! I don’t know. I said no because I’d already told Vicki we’d go together, but then I told Vicki, and she said that I was dumb for saying no to someone as popular as Rick, and then other people found out and started—whatever, it’s stupid. It doesn’t matter.”

Waves of anger and humiliation rolled off of Alex, catching J’onn off guard and nearly overwhelming him in their intensity. But there, underneath it all, was something like fear, some undercurrent of panic that made J’onn want to stay on the topic instead of shifting to something lighter.

“If it upset you, it does matter, Alex. You don’t have to tell me, but I—I suspect it isn’t good to bottle it all up.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Stupid things can still be upsetting.” J’onn’s gaze flickered down to Alex’s bruised knuckles. “Sometimes upsetting enough to make us lash out.”

“Just stupid shit. Not like it’s true or whatever, you know?” Alex blinked up at him, her features pinched with a desperate need for him to say yes, to understand that these things, they weren’t true. If he said they weren’t true, it would make them not true.

J’onn didn’t say yes, though. He simply gazed over at Alex and said in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry their words hurt you so much.”

“I didn’t say that.” Alex’s voice dropped then, losing its edge as her gaze fell to the wooden table with its worn grooves and discolored spots that no amount of wiping down would erase. “They said I was gay.”

“They?” Despite knowing there were probably more important things to get to in that sentence, the parent in him got stuck on the idea that multiple people were attacking Alex at once, yet she was the one to get suspended.

“I dunno. Rick’s friends.”

“And they all tried to attack you?”

“What?” Alex’s brow furrowed as she shook her head. “No. They were just saying shit.” Once more, J’onn didn’t correct her language, figuring Eliza would be okay with exceptions for extenuating circumstances. “And they wouldn’t leave, so I punched Mike. And maybe another couple of them too. But then Mike’s girlfriend hit me while I was distracted. I got her back, though.”

J’onn took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth.

Alex glared across the table, and J’onn decided his first impulse to think of her as fierce was probably true to the mark. Fierce. Fiercely protective. All bound up together in something that so often burst forth in violence. He vowed to get Alex to join Kara and him for meditation one morning. Perhaps the discipline of certain schools of fighting would help her to center her emotions as well, remind her that no amount of punching and kicking could fix things, even if they were useful to have as protection. But all that could wait for later. “I’m glad you weren’t more injured.”

Alex shrugged, but J’onn could see her relaxing slightly as she realized he wasn’t about to yell at her.

Trying to get the timing right, J’onn swept up their dirty napkins and his bowl into a small pile in front of him. As he rose to his feet, he glanced up at Alex and added, “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. Certainly nothing that should make it an insult.” He was walking to the trashcan before Alex had time to process his words, lingered long enough for her shocked expression to fade to something more neutral before he turned back. “Shall we head home?”

“Uh, sure.”

They spent the drive in near silence, interrupted only by the sound of the flashlight that had come loose from its holder rattling around in the trunk whenever they braked and the quiet click of Alex’s teeth as she chewed at her fingernails.

When they arrived, J’onn explained to Alex that he was going to call her mother to let her know that there’d been an incident, though he’d leave it to Alex to explain what had happened however she saw fit. She didn’t say thank you, but the slight loosening of the tense set of her muscles was enough to suggest he’d made the right choice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the lovely comments on the last chapter! With my dog's surgery and now the start of his few months of recovery, I haven't gotten a chance to respond, but do know that I read and appreciate them all <3

The rest of the school year seemed to pass by in a blur for Alex.

There were the martial arts lessons she’d begun with J’onn that somehow seemed to deal a lot more with breathing and something he called centering herself than with breaking boards and flipping people twice her size. J’onn promised she’d get there, though, so she kept coming back week after week, even when he started inviting Kara, insisting it might come in handy one day. Alex would later begrudgingly admit that it was good Kara joined them when she was nearly killed investigating Kenny’s murder, but that was only after a good five months of whining as Kara got to do the “cool stuff” before her.

Then there were the increasingly dire warnings from college guidance counselors to all the juniors about not letting their academic performance slip and making sure they were doing enough school activities with leadership roles, no less, and volunteering in the community for enough hours to show it wasn’t some checkbox kind of thing, and continuing to get high marks in increasingly difficult classes with increasingly heavy workloads, and writing the perfect essay to accompany perfect standardized exam scores and perfect letters of recommendation, oh, and ignoring all that stress and sleep deprivation to be personable enough to impress any recruiters and interviewers if the opportunity arose. All of which culminated in a pale and clammy Alex throwing up in the bushes in front of the Midvale High parking lot on the morning of the SAT. Later, when she got her near-perfect scores back and again when she got her acceptance letter from Stanford, she’d laugh it off and act like it all came naturally to her while Kara and J’onn and her mom toasted her with sparkling apple juice over a celebratory cookie cake of her choosing.

And of course, there was the drama of high school friendships and relationships that all felt like the most important things that would ever happen to Alex in the moment. She’d gone to junior prom with Rick against her gut reaction and kissed him on the beach at the after-party. He’d tasted like stale beer and pizza, and it had made Alex’s stomach churn so badly that she’d slipped away early while everyone else was distracted with setting off fireworks. Eliza hadn’t said a word when she came home early, the hem of her gown crusted over with dirt and sand. Instead, she’d offered up a fluffy terrycloth robe, fresh from the laundry, and heated up some of the pad thai she and Kara had ordered for dinner, before putting on one of the scary movies Alex seemed to love and holding up the corner of the blanket she’d been curled under reading a recent journal article while pretending like she wasn’t waiting up for her oldest to get home.

The next year, Alex found herself growing closer and closer to Kara, popularity be damned. Watching some of her old friends mock Kara had been enough for her to distance herself, but Halloween had been the last straw. That night, they’d all ended up at Mike’s house since his parents didn’t seem to care about what he did, so long as he kept kicking the football through the posts. Alex still hadn’t forgotten the gay comments, but Mike had forgiven Alex for punching him when she’d come back from summer break with bigger boobs, and he’d stocked his bar with something other than cheap beer, so Alex followed Vicki inside. After learning that she was really quite good at beer pong, Alex decided to keep her five-game streak unbroken and meandered down to the basement, where someone had put on The Shining for an audience of no one.

“Yo! Alex, come play!” Mike yelled, his words already starting to slur together, a vodka soda Alex suspected was heavy on the vodka sloshing over the edge of the cup and running down the back of his hand.

“Yeah, c’mon,” Vicki called, grinning at Alex and patting the ground next to her.

“Kay.” Alex settled in and dropped her head on Vicki’s shoulder, her whole body feeling warm and heavy and a little sleepy after the beer and the shots of whiskey someone had insisted she needed. With all that, it took her a few minutes to realize they’d circled up with a bottle in the middle that was now being spun at a dizzying speed.

She blinked slowly as Mike leaned across the circle and smashed his lips against one of the cheerleaders—Jenna, Alex thought. Then Jenna spun and got Mike, which Alex really thought was shit luck, but she didn’t seem to mind and kissed him for even longer the second time.

Derek spun next, the bottle landing on one of the linebackers. They both spluttered until all the yells around them made it clear that if they didn’t kiss it meant they were scared, and if they were scared it meant they were gay. And with that imposing logic hanging over them, Derek and linebacker boy Alex couldn’t remember crashed into each other—not only lips, but noses and foreheads meeting for one uncoordinated moment.

Alex nearly forgot that she would have to play until Vicki spun, and the bottle came to a stop, its neck pointing at Alex like a big fucking accusation. “Wha—?”

“Come on, Alex,” Vicki whispered, “let’s give ’em a good show.”

And, knowing that, somehow, it was gay _not_ to kiss her best friend with that shiny strawberry blonde hair and those glossy lips, Alex let herself be kissed thoroughly, ignoring the hoots and wolf-whistles of the crowd around them in favor of reveling in the softness of Vicki’s skin beneath her fingers, the way her lips seemed to know Alex’s mouth so much better than Rick’s had, the slight hint of the spearmint gum she was always popping making Alex’s tongue tingle.

Their kiss seemed to end the game, which was really just fine in Alex’s book, except that somehow the end of the game turned into the start of Vicki’s even longer makeout session with the point guard from the basketball team who’d signed with Duke during junior year. Then Derek was sidling up to Alex, telling her how sexy that was, pointing in the direction of one of the couches with what she thought was supposed to be an appealing smile.

“I need a drink,” Alex blurted out. “I’ll—I’ll be right back.”

She was already stumbling up the stairs by the time Derek could offer to go get it for her. Something sat heavy and dense in the pit of her stomach, and blood pounded in her ears, and despite all of that, the heady undercurrent of want—and not for Derek, god, if only it were for Derek—coursed through her veins, making her feel too warm and sweaty.

She slipped into the bathroom, ignoring the repugnant smell from whatever the fuck had been happening in there earlier, and pulled out her phone. She debated texting Kara, but she was at one of her first sleepovers, and Alex didn’t want to fuck that up for her—not when she was finally finding some friends of her own. She pulled up J’onn’s contact info instead, sending: “Can u come get me?” before remembering that he was traveling for work, had cancelled their martial arts lessons that weekend for a reason that had nothing to do with Halloween celebrations. She could suck it up and spend the night with Vicki like she’d planned to, getting a ride home with her older sister who wouldn’t ask questions about how late it was or why they reeked of booze, but the thought of staying made Alex want to die a little bit. And anything, _anything_ , was better than going back down to Derek and Vicki and all of them. So she texted her mom, and within 30 seconds, she’d gotten confirmation that she was on her way.

The car ride home was almost silent. Alex knew she looked tipsy at best and smelled even worse. She swore she could feel the heavy eyeliner she’d so carefully applied earlier that evening melting, leaving tear drops of black goop dripping down the sides of her eyes. When Alex let out a small groan at a particularly sharp turn, Eliza sighed and handed over a bottle of water, pushing it into Alex’s hands with a quiet, “Drink this.”

And it shouldn’t have done anything to her, but suddenly Alex was crying—the kind of tears that kept coming no matter how sternly she ordered her eyes to stop it. “I’m sorry,” she managed through gasping breaths that didn’t seem to be properly oxygenating her brain or her body.

“I’m not.” The shock was nearly enough to stem the flow of tears. “I’m proud of you.”

“Wh—why?”

“You were ready to leave, and you did what you needed to do to make that happen safely.” It was so matter-of-fact that Alex couldn’t quite argue with it. “You’re still grounded for the next week for drinking and telling me you’d only be at Vicki’s house, of course.”

“Okay,” Alex grumbled. Still, she knew it could have been worse—way worse.

“Will Vicki need a ride home too? I don’t want her trying to drive.”

“No.” Nausea wrapped around Alex’s body, making her curl in on herself.

“Is everything okay?”

 _No_ , Alex wanted to yell. _Nothing is okay_. “Her sister’s getting her.”

“Okay.”

When they got home, Eliza put on water for plain pasta with olive oil and salt, insisting it would help when Alex shook her head and turned away from the food. “You know,” Eliza began, “the first—and only, mind you—time I came home after drinking, my mother sat herself down in the big armchair right by the door to the kitchen, so that I’d have to go past her if I wanted food. And I just knew that she’d know if she saw me. It turns out she already knew.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I may have tripped into the screen door on my way inside.” Alex let out a snort of laughter, trying to imagine her mother as anything other than the grown up who drank a glass of wine with dinner and didn’t change one bit with it. “Anyway, instead of facing her, I went to bed without eating any food or drinking any water. I woke up feeling like death, and finally admitted to everything when she handed me the dog leash and told me to take him out for a nice long walk.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It was. And unless you want to repeat it, I suggest you eat something. It’s that, or I’m going to sit down and tell you all of the scientific details about exactly how you’re poisoning your body right now.”

Alex held her hands up in a pacifying gesture before grabbing the fork and stabbing a few of the little bowties she’d deemed her favorite at 5 years old. “Okay, okay. I’m eating.”

After that night, Vicki started dating the point guard—Bryan, spelled with a y, which somehow made him even worse in Alex’s book—and stopped wanting to spend time alone with Alex. It was always, “Come over sit with _us_ at lunch,” or, “ _We_ ’re going to the movies tonight if you want to join.” Sometimes Vicki invited Derek with a wink and a nudge that made Alex feel ill. And it wasn’t necessarily because she didn’t like boys, but she didn’t like that boy. Didn’t like the boys in Midvale. At Stanford she’d find a nice boy probably. Because she didn’t, like, love women or something. Maybe she had a crush on Vicki, but that was because she was Vicki. How could you spend so many nights and long days hanging out with someone and not have a little crush on them? She vaguely remembered some hint of something that made her heart beat a little faster with Cassidy, her best friend from middle school. It was just friendship, but upgraded a little bit. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that. Still, all those reassurances didn’t make it easier to see Bryan slipping his hand into the back pocket of Vicki’s jeans _because it was gross and they were in public, for god’s sake_ , and it didn’t stop her stomach from flopping over unpleasantly at the sight of them cuddling and kissing in the basement.

So, little by little, they grew apart. And over the months, Alex spent more time with Kara and Kara’s ragtag band of friends who, after a period of adjustment, turned out not to be so bad. They liked board games instead of spin the bottle, and Alex was more than happy never to play that game again in her life. They ordered all kinds of takeout without talk of diets and pinched rolls of nonexistent fat. And despite the rather obvious crush Jawad had on Kara that Kara remained wholly oblivious to, there was no romantic drama fucking up the group dynamics. It was…fun. Easy. Light.

On the weekends when Sam and Jawad and Alyssa couldn’t come over, Alex and Kara hung out. Kara didn’t push Alex with questions about where Vicki had gone after the first attempt had been quickly shut down, and Alex didn’t mock Kara in the way she once had, excusing the sharp barbs as good old-fashioned sibling rivalry. Of course, that new mode of treating Kara better didn’t stop her from teasing Kara about her gigantic crush on Cat Grant, which had only grown in size since Cat began doing a series on alien rights on her talk show. And if Kara’s easy acceptance of said teasing, her failure to deny having a crush on a woman, made the knot in Alex’s stomach loosen a little bit, well then that was just a perk. During their nights together, they ate ice cream and talked about the future. Kara admitted to being a little scared about life at Midvale High without Alex, and Alex, a few weeks later, let slip that she was going to miss Kara and sister nights.

Still, no amount of apprehension could dull the thrill of graduation, of getting to stand up and give her salutatorian speech (because she had to drop that one extra AP, so of course Sally beat her by 0.001 points, but whatever, she wasn’t bitter or anything), of hearing herself toasted again and again by her extended family who had descended on Midvale to join her mom and Kara and J’onn in celebrating Alex. Her mom even let her drink champagne and distracted Aunt Rachel with pointless conversation, allowing Alex to escape from the litany of questions about boyfriends and crushes and the handsome men she might meet at college, future doctors perhaps. Alex didn’t point out that she was already going to be a doctor and didn’t need someone else to claim that title for her. Sometimes it was better to pick and choose her battles.

At the end of the night, Alex curled up in her twin bed with Kara who picked at the leftover cake while Alex opened all of her cards and presents, her mouth gaping at home much money some people thought she deserved for making it through four years of education. Later that month, Alex went to the mall with Kara and her mom and used a chunk of that money to purchase herself some new clothes for college, plus that list of “dorm room essentials” Stanford had sent out to all of the incoming freshmen. She didn’t really care about having a room theme or anything like that, but she figured getting most things in various shades of blue was a good bet when it came to not clashing with her future roommate’s stuff.

The last months of summer flew by in a blur of goodbye parties where the whole grade acted like they were friends, no matter what shitty things they’d said about or done to each other over the years, and family vacations spent hiking in national parks and hanging out in lakeside cabins, and sister nights made extra meaningful with every week that ticked by.

Before Alex knew it, she was standing in her dorm room, hugging her mom and Kara and J’onn goodbye and acting like the tears were the result of the dust they’d stirred up in dropping down a rug to cover a large portion of the floor. She promised her mom she’d be good and keep in touch and call if she had any trouble, swore to J’onn that she’d keep practicing her breathing and write him a letter every now and then (he claimed he preferred them to text messages, though Alex thought the convenience factor of the latter should have played a bigger role), swallowed heavily and insisted to Kara that they’d find a way to keep some of their sister night traditions alive even with the distance.

And then they were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up we'll get more of a focus on Kara and J'onn, plus some glimpses of Alex in college! We're moving through these early years pretty fast, but things will slow down pacing-wise once we get closer to the heart of the action


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's been a hot second! Good news is that I've got a pretty full draft for the next chapter, so that should be up early next week. Heads up for some non-graphic content relating to illness and panic.

After a full month of Alex’s being gone, the loneliness started to get to Kara. Sure, she still had friends, though Sam had moved away over the summer, and Alex still called weekly and texted almost daily like she promised she would, but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t throw popcorn into the mouth of a text message or crawl into bed with a phone call when she had a nightmare about Krypton or her years in the Phantom Zone. She didn’t want to make Alex feel guilty, though, so she kept quiet about it, telling Alex instead about the movies she saw with friends and the senior class trip to a water park that she was really looking forward to. And she plastered on the same happy smile for Eliza and for J’onn when he was over, chatting excitedly about her classes—it was the first time she’d gotten to pick electives, including one on journalism, so she really was happy about them.

Of course, neither Eliza nor J’onn missed the way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, the times when she’d falter in the middle of a story that would once have included Alex, the moments of silence that ticked by before she answered certain questions.

So one crisp fall Saturday morning, a sleepy Kara was shepherded out to J’onn’s idling car with a promise to have fun and be safe that Kara didn’t quite understand until she and J’onn arrived at a dense forest far, far away from even small towns like Midvale. “I think it’s about time you got to test out some of those powers, don’t you?”

“Wait…” Kara bit down on her lower lip to keep her excitement in check in case it wasn’t what she thought it was. But she got to use her heat vision and freeze breath down in Eliza’s lab, at least under carefully controlled circumstances, and she’d learned how to use all of her senses without getting overwhelmed thanks to J’onn’s help. But flying…well, that one they hadn’t found a way to test, outside of some floating around the house that had more to do with keeping herself from tripping than really making sure she could still do the whole thing.

“I don’t know if I mentioned it to you before, but under a yellow sun, Martians can also fly.” J’onn felt his heart warm at the sight of tears shimmering in Kara’s eyes.

“You mean…you’re coming with me?”

“If you want to. Eliza and I checked and double-checked the area. We’re out of the way of any flight paths and far enough away from civilization that we don’t have too much of a risk off running into people.”

“Rao, yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

Kara practically hovered the whole walk from the car to the forest’s edge, and once they’d made it in far enough that the sun’s light slowly filtered away, she did a somersault in the air, grinning at the feeling of weightlessness, of freedom from the act she put on for everyone else. And then J’onn was J’onn, green skin and all, floating right up in the air with her and looking nearly as comfortable in getting to be himself. Over the course of the afternoon, they practiced winding through the trees, Kara learning to turn at speed without leaving destruction in her wake, learning to listen for faraway sounds and track them, learning to center herself even when she was buzzing with excitement.

Over the large lunch of sandwiches and cold pizza and chips Eliza had packed for them, Kara asked, “Do you think I’ll get to be like my cousin?”

“What do you mean? Using your powers publicly?”

“Yeah, to save people. You know, being a hero. Just like him.”

J’onn took a deep breath, trying to measure his response. “I think you’ll be a hero in your own right, Kara, whether you use your powers or not.”

A furrow appeared on Kara’s brow as she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “But not…I won’t get to be like him?”

“I don’t mean that as anything bad. I think you should get to chart your own path, decide what matters most to you. And that is a very good thing.” Buying himself a bit of time, J’onn took a sip of his water, letting himself drift back in time to many years earlier. “I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve actually met your cousin.”

“Wait, when? Did he come to town without telling me?”

J’onn bit his tongue and didn’t point out that the fact that Kara could ask such a question was proof that they’d never be the same kind of hero. “No, years ago, back when I was still hiding out. He didn’t—we saw things differently.” It was a bit of an understatement, but Kara didn’t need to know they’d nearly come to blows—the very incident that would inspire Superman to publicly call J’onn “the most powerful being on Earth.”

Kara tilted her head to the side slightly and motioned for J’onn to keep talking.

“What your cousin does can be good, but sometimes it can do harm to his community.” In the face of Kara’s pained expression, it took effort to keep speaking. “Sometimes he intervenes when he doesn’t need to. And every time he’s on the front page of the paper, every time his face is flashed on a television screen, he risks attracting the attention of powerful enemies—the kinds that can’t be defeated by regular firefighters and police officers and EMTs.” Then there was all the anti-alien sentiment that followed quietly behind him, but Kara didn’t need to know about that just yet.

“Are you saying it’s his fault?” With her hands curled into fists, J’onn couldn’t help recognizing a bit of Alex in her.

“No,” J’onn insisted with a firm shake of his head. “He came here as an infant. He didn’t know all the kinds of enemies that were out there, capable of reaching Earth, capable of finding him and hurting the people he loves.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “But let’s say I were to make my existence public. I know firsthand that I would risk bringing the very worst kinds of aliens to this planet. And I would never wish that upon another species. No one deserves to be wiped out like that. No one deserves to live with that kind of fear.”

Kara bowed her head, her fingers trailing through the dirt beneath her. “Right.”

“I’m not saying that the world or even Metropolis would be better off without Superman, no matter what some of those awful people on the news say.” Kara’s shoulders rolled back slightly from what he’d feared might become a permanent slump. “I’m simply saying that there are other ways to do good on this planet.”

“Is your consulting job the good thing you’re doing here?”

J’onn couldn’t help laughing at that. “Not at all.”

“Oh.”

“Being here for you and your sister and your mother—right now, that’s enough for me. And when you go off to college, I’ve got some ideas in mind, so don’t you worry.”

With a sniffle, Kara inched closer to J’onn. “Thanks. I don’t—I mean, obviously Eliza’s a great mom, and I’m sure we’d have been fine. But I’m glad we didn’t have to do it alone.”

J’onn closed his eyes, thinking back to the years spent in hiding, nursing his pain all to himself. “I’m glad you didn’t have to do it alone either.”

As the quiet stretched on, the heavy mood that had cloaked their earlier conversation seemed to lift. “So,” Kara asked around a mouthful of chips, “what are your ideas for when we’re gone?”

“Well, you know how I lived in isolation for a very long time.” Kara nodded. “There are a lot of aliens like me out there—the ones who escaped or who ended up here by mistake, the ones that didn’t have a pod to teach them Earth languages before they arrived or who have skin that doesn’t let them blend in and pass as human.”

Kara paused, her hand halfway to the tinfoil-wrapped bundle she hoped contained some of those chocolate chip cookies Eliza had made the night before. With as much trouble as she’d had integrating into life on Earth, she hadn’t thought much about the aliens who’d had it even worse. She didn’t get idioms and jokes, but at least she knew the language. She might have seemed weird, but at least she looked human. “Oh. And I guess without an earth family, they don’t really know how to get into school or find jobs and stuff…” Kara trailed off, remembering the few weeks she’d spent in limbo while Eliza and Jermiah got her set up with an earth identity. “Would you want to be in charge of, like, reaching out to them? Making sure they know how to use the services they need to live on this planet?”

“Well, there are a lot of services people need for living, but most of them are set up for humans from this planet. Or”—he added with a sad smile—“those of us who pass as human and have contacts here to help navigate bureaucracy. Nothing is set in stone, but I think it would be helpful if we could organize similar programs for those of us from somewhere out there.” He gestured up at the sky above them, just barely visible through the tree cover.

Kara nodded in understanding. “Cat had a whole segment on her show about something like that. Did you see? She had Senator Marsdin on a couple weeks ago, and they were talking about, like, immigration for aliens. Infrastructure in place for aliens. Passing bills to protect refugees. Getting translators and all sorts of stuff so that people could actually use the services. You know, making it safe.”

“I did see. Perhaps one day…well, maybe things are changing faster I realize.” He smiled over at Kara. “I think my dreams of helping are a little smaller. Nothing formalized with acts and bills and bureaus. But maybe a day will come when the arrival of a government organization doesn’t spark fear in alien hearts like it did for me.”

Kara chewed on her lower lip as she mulled it over, broken out of her thoughts only by the sound of J’onn standing up.

“What do you say to a bit more flying before I take you home?”

\---

“Put that wallet away.”

“You don’t have to, Eshe. Really.”

But Eshe just waved away Alex’s wallet and handed over her own card. “I invited you—my treat.” She shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Some of the boys on this campus could learn a thing or two about how to treat a woman.”

And Alex knew—or, well, no, she didn’t _know_ , but she was pretty sure—that Eshe didn’t mean anything by it, but it made Alex’s heart beat in double time and her cheeks warm. As Eshe turned back to the cashier to sign for their coffees and pastries, Alex couldn’t quite keep herself from peering at her profile—the strong jawline with that one faint scar from, Alex had learned, falling face-first into a glass coffee table as a toddler; the smooth, dark skin that looked like it would be soft to the touch; the curly hair cropped close on the sides with just a hint of height on top that made her look so impossibly, unbearably _cool_. But then Eshe was turning back around and handing Alex her coffee and her scone, and Alex tried to let her gaze settle on anything else, grateful for the few seconds she had to compose herself when Eshe turned around to scout out a good table.

Following quickly, Alex tried to imagine what it would be like if she wore clothes like Eshe’s—the jeans that were fitted without being tight that didn’t look like anything Alex had ever seen in the stores her mom used to drag her to for back-to-school shopping, but then again, maybe if she’d ventured out of the “Miss” section she’d have found them… And almost always with Timberland boots that seemed kind of out of season but that Eshe had said were everywhere back home in Metropolis. The shirts varied. Today she had on a plain white shirt whose cuffed sleeves revealed strong arms—not the wiry “lean” muscle that all the girls back in Midvale cared about getting, but the kind you could see from a distance, the kind that kept the fratty assholes away.

“You okay?”

 _Fuck_. “Yeah! Sorry, uh, just thinking about what’s due this week.” After nearly two full semesters of being in almost all the same pre-med track classes, it had gotten harder for Alex to ignore some of her feelings about Eshe. Of course, in the beginning it was easy to chalk it up to something like admiration. After all, she made it seem so effortlessly easy—just…just the way she existed in the world, the way she took up space, the way she didn’t hide away the patches and pins covering her bag that made it as clear as the clothes and the hair that she was Not Straight.

“Ugh, yeah.” Eshe slumped down into her chair, pulling out the planner that seemed to have some new sticker for some new cause layered on the cover each week. Today it was something about worker rights. “They really love to just throw everything at us right before spring break.”

“Don’t remind me. And then it’s only another couple of weeks til finals.”

“Well they certainly couldn’t risk having us relax a little before exams.”

Alex cracked a smile. “Worst case scenario for sure. Don’t know what would happen if I let loose a little.”

It was Eshe’s turn to smile then, her mouth turning up into a teasing smirk that did funny things to Alex’s stomach. “I remember your birthday, even if you don’t.” Alex pursed her lips. “I’d say quite a lot can happen when you let loose.”

“Yes, well…” During, it had been nice. Too nice, almost. The freedom of feeling all her worries and cares doused in alcohol and drowned out in the heavy bass pounding through whatever grimy 18+ club her small group of friends had dragged her to. The next morning had been one of the most hellish experiences of her life, even with Eshe’s insistence that she eat food and drink plenty of water before faceplanting into her bed. “Whatever,” Alex grumbled, wishing she could think of some witty comeback.

“Hey, I didn’t say you weren’t fun.”

Alex could feel her cheeks flush with warmth. Her recollection was still spotty—and she had zero desire to ask anyone to confirm the details—but she remembered more than once dragging Eshe with her to the dance floor claiming that it was “my song!” The last time she’d done it, Eshe’s arms were the only thing still keeping her standing, and Alex was fairly certain she’d traced the lines of her muscles and expressed more blatant admiration for them than any supposedly straight girl should have done. After that, Eshe insisted Alex switch to water, then took her to the grimy pizza shop down the block, not laughing—not even once—at Alex’s assertions that the shop switched owners overnight because the food was too good to be the same shit they sold during the day.

“Not to be a downer, but do you want to switch to the always exciting world of molecular biology?”

“The most fun,” Alex laughed, though she actually enjoyed the class (and knew Eshe did too—she doubted they’d be as close as they were if it hadn’t been for their mutual nerdiness).

For the next couple of hours, they worked on their lab reports together, before switching over to the problem sets for orgo. In between problems, they chatted about nothing and everything, letting the conversation meander, which brought them to talk of Kara’s senior prom (she was much more excited than Alex ever had been) and the campus Pride group that Eshe had gotten involved in during the fall semester (no matter how many hints she dropped that Alex should join them, Alex hadn’t been able to pluck up the courage to make it to a meeting).

Once they’d done enough work to call it a productive day, they began packing away their notebooks. Alex rolled out her neck and shoulders, hearing a satisfying crack as everything found its way back into alignment. “Are we, um, are you still good with our spring break plans?”

“What? Eating too much candy and watching horror movies with you?”

Alex nodded, wishing that maybe she were the kind of cool person who had plans to go to Miami or do something crazy that she’d be able to laugh about years down the line.

Eshe reached out and gave her hand a brief squeeze before pulling back and winking at her. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

 _Oh_. Maybe it wasn’t such a sad plan after all.

\---

Alex wondered if Eshe could feel her heart pounding, the echoes of her too fast pulse resounding and reverberating through her whole body. Maybe she’d chalk it up to the slasher flick currently playing on the TV Alex and her roommate had split the cost of, neither of them quite thinking about the fact that they wouldn’t have much time to use it. Not that Alex had paid attention to the movie, absorbed as every ounce of her mental energy was to going through all the possible reasons why Eshe might have draped an arm across her shoulders. It seemed…implausible that she might like Alex as more than a friend. Sure, they did homework together and ate dinner together at the cafeteria most nights and spent a lot of their free time together—whether with the whole friend group or, more recently, on their own—but Eshe was….she was cool and out and very attractive in a way that Alex thought might best be described as handsome.

Before she could think much more about it, though, the room phone rang, its loud, shrill tone breaking whatever moment might have been building.

“Fuck, sorry!” Alex scrambled up from the bed and over to Caitlyn’s desk to grab the phone. “H’llo?”

“Alex?”

Alex’s brows scrunched up in confusion. “Mom?” Every so often she called unexpectedly, but normally they stuck to their scheduled weekend calls. “Is everything okay?” She could hear the clack of keys, followed by a long hacking cough, then the sound of her mother swearing under her breath. “Mom?”

“Sorry, sweetie.” Her voice was tight, the airy tone sounding forced. “Remember how I mentioned that Kara had seemed a little off this weekend?”

“Uh, yeah?” Honestly, it’d gotten lost in the shuffle, and Alex had probably chalked it up to prom-related nerves or something.

“Her condition has deteriorated. Rapidly.”

“Wait, what? She can’t—” Alex cleared her throat, remembering that she wasn’t alone. “I thought, um, that wasn’t a risk for her.”

“J’onn mentioned that sometimes in cities with high-density alien enclaves there are some viral strains of, well, alien versions of the flu, I guess would be the best way to describe it, and Kara was in National City last week for her journalism class field trip to CatCo’s headquarters.”

“Fuck.” When Eliza didn’t automatically correct her, Alex knew things must be dire. “Is it, um, is it just the flu?”

The silence over the line hung heavily all around Alex. “I don’t know,” Eliza finally admitted. “She’s never been sick on this planet, so it’s hard to have a baseline for comparison. But she, well, she’s been asking for you when she’s lucid.”

“Wait. _When_ she’s lucid? Mom! What’s going on?” She spotted Eshe quietly getting up and finding her shoes out of the corner of her eyes, but she couldn’t care at the moment.

“The onset was fast—faster than almost anything I’ve ever seen—and the deterioration is recent. If you’re able to come home, J’onn can be on campus in two hours.”

“Yeah, let me just pack a few things, but tell…tell Kara that I’m coming, okay?”

“I will.” The last thing Alex heard was a quiet whimper, followed by the start of another coughing fit, then the line cut out.

She slowly lowered the phone back down the cradle, her hands trembling slightly. For her mom to call and drag her home… Kara must… Indestructible Kara who couldn’t be burnt or bruised or cut… Kara who had panicked when Alex had plain old cramps for fuck’s sake, nervous about her “frail” human body…

“Is there anything I can do?” Even though Eshe’s voice was soft, it seemed to ring out like a shot in the silent room.

“I have to go home.”

“Okay. Do you need a ride? Or a hand packing?”

“No, uh, I just…” Alex trailed off, preparing mental checklist after mental checklist, compartmentalizing all those messy fears and emotions that threatened to be that tiny little thread that would unravel all of her composure. “You should probably go.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Eshe nodded and took a step back. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

\---

The next week was spent anxiously hovering by Kara’s bedside—in a full Hazmat suit from her mom’s lab for the first 24 hours until they confirmed that it wasn’t contagious to humans, then in her oldest, softest, rattiest pajamas as she curled into Kara’s side, stroking hair off her sweat-dampened forehead and handing Kara a cup of water every time she took a rattling inhale.

With Alex home to tend to Kara, Eliza spent long days in her lab, running trials as she tested various possible antidotes and calling any colleague or past classmate she could think of who might have any ideas for a purely hypothetical case. Even Kal-El came up empty handed, all the answers from the Fortress suggesting various forms of Kryptonian medicine unavailable on Earth.

For four long days, Kara’s condition failed to improve, sometimes staying steady and, at other times—the times that made the lines of Eliza’s mouth grow tighter before she rushed back down to the lab—further deteriorating.

Alex watched as her unbreakable sister’s skin took on a deathly white pallor, her lips growing pale and cracked. She fetched glasses of cool water and mugs of hot tea that Kara could barely drink. She dabbed at Kara’s overheated skin with a wet washcloth, whispering that everything was going to be okay when Kara cried out, even though they had no idea.

On the fifth day, with Kara’s body under a high-powered if somewhat clunky looking series of sun lamps that J’onn and Eliza had rigged up, her fever eased by a whole degree, dropping down to 104, which Eliza assured Alex was significant for a Kryptonian whose basal temperature was 100.

On the sixth day, Eliza managed to get Kara to swallow three large spoonfuls of what Alex guessed was an alien antibiotic—she hadn’t left Kara’s side long enough to find out what was happening down in the lab.

On the seventh day, Alex left messages for all of her professors explaining that there had been a family emergency over break, and she would not be in class, though she sent typed up versions of her problem sets and other homework assignments to them and promised to continue doing the work.

On the eight night, Kara’s fever finally broke, dropping all the way back down to 100.3. When Eliza announced it, Alex forced herself to smile before locking herself in the bathroom for nearly half an hour as waves of the bubbling panic she’d been forcing down for over a week finally claimed her, tightening their grip around her chest until her breath came in short gasping gulps and her whole body shook. She took a long shower once she could manage to stand, trying to cover up evidence of her own moment of weakness.

After missing several days of class to ensure that the one night hadn’t been a fluke, Alex finally went back to Stanford. The rest of the school year passed by in a blur. Alex didn’t go out much. Didn’t do much. Once or twice she saw Eshe, who could tell that something was wrong but didn’t want to push.

Alex took her finals early just so that she could go back to Midvale to see proof for herself that Kara really had recovered. Kara insisted that she was fine, even though she’d clearly been shaken by the whole ordeal, mentioned something about never having been that sick before—even on Krypton, where the medicine was advanced enough to stop most illnesses before they’d really begun.

“I’m gonna make sure you never have to go through that again, okay?” Alex whispered to Kara on her last night in Midvale before she had to go back to Stanford to start her summer internship.

“What?” Kara asked, poking Alex in the ribs as she snuggled in closer to her on the sofa. “You gonna keep me in a big plastic bubble?”

“No. I, uh, Stanford’s been starting to offer some grad classes in astrobiology. And not just the ones about how life might have begun on different planets, but actually looking at alien physiology. I think…I think they might let me audit a grad class or two next year, so long as I keep up with my grades and my regular courses, and I found this one professor. Kara, she’s so cool!” Kara grinned as Alex grew visibly more animated, her hands suddenly gesturing in the air between them and her eyes lighting up. “She’s starting a new research lab on how strains of viruses mutate between planets, and I mean, I know I’ll only be a sophomore, but she’s gonna need lab assistants, you know?”

“I bet you’re better than any of the seniors and juniors anyway.”

“Well, no, I mean, I don’t know that I’d be better qualified or whatever, but it”—Alex cleared her throat, suddenly very interested in picking at her nails—“it matters to me. Probably more than it does to most people.”

Kara bit back the urge to tackle Alex into a bear hug, knowing that for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, acknowledging all the things Alex did for her somehow annoyed Alex more than playing it cool. So instead she nudged her with her shoulder and whispered, “Thanks.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As a heads up, fall 2008 marks Alex’s third year at Stanford (told ya we’d be moving more quickly now that things have been established), just so you have some sense of the timeline as we skip forward. Also heads up for some potential 2016 flashbacks and some anti-alien xenophobia

“Alright folks, this just in, AP is calling it. The winner of the 2008 presidential election is Governor Hessler.”

Alex sat, blinking at the television, willing it all to be a dream somehow.

“Fuck.”

It didn’t matter who said it—soon the whole room had erupted in an angry hum. Anything was better than the crushing desolation Alex felt creeping its way up her esophagus and threatening to choke her.

Eshe’s voice finally broke Alex out of her thoughts. “This the first election you’ve really cared about?”

“What? I mean…I cared—”

“Hey, I’m not saying it as an insult, okay? It’s just…it hits harder the first time. I get it.”

Alex swallowed heavily as she nodded. She’d cared in the past in the way that everyone around her had cared. She knew to vote left. Knew which party had values that mirrored hers more than others, even if she wasn’t sure about everything. But this time—this time had been different. This time there’d been candidates explicitly campaigning against people like Kara, like J’onn. And now, apparently, they’d _won_. They’d won on a platform of hate. On a platform that called for massive deportations, even if they couldn’t answer questions about where those aliens would go who had no home planet left, or who would be going back to the ruins of a land torn apart by war and conquest, or who would return to their certain death.

“Look, I”—Eshe swallowed as she looked around the room at the faces whose expressions more closely mirrored hers than Alex’s, the kind of disappointment that wasn’t new, the loss that had already been worn in, carved grooves, made a home over the years—“why don’t we go for a walk, alright?”

Alex managed a nod, pulling herself up on legs that wobbled slightly. She found a Gatorade from the mini fridge one of the alums had bequeathed to Pride after their graduation being pushed into her hands.

“Drink,” Eshe instructed. “Sugar. Carbs. It’ll do you good.”

She drank in silence, wishing she could cut its too-thick sweetness with something sharper, harder. Vodka, maybe.

As if hearing her thoughts, Eshe guided Alex out of the office before the consolation booze could start flowing freely.

For a short while, they walked in silence, meandering around the campus perimeter before wandering further into town. But then one of Eshe’s friends caught them and mentioned that apparently there had been an attack at an alien bar in Opal City—some emboldened group of drunk Hessler supporters—and even though they hadn’t gotten far, the message was well-received all across the country.

When Alex and Eshe stumbled across a small group of men yelling taunting jeers and burning some gaudy party store version of Superman’s logo—the logo that Alex knew was really Kara’s family crest—the anger that had been simmering all night burst forth in a rush of rage.

She’d charged across the street before Eshe even registered her absence.

Had taken down two men with a knee to the groin and a sharp punch to the gut, respectively, and was screaming—nothing coherent, just rage poured into sound—at a third before she felt strong arms wrap around her from behind.

“We’re just leaving.” Eshe announced, dragging Alex back across the street to where stores were still open, lights on, making everything feel just a little more public, scrutinized in some way that hovered on the edge of making Alex feel either safe or scared.

Before Alex could yank her arms free, her phone rang. “Kara,” she gasped. It took a few long moments for her fingers to fumble with the buttons before she actually accepted the call, but then it was there, and Kara’s voice was coming through the line. “Kara! Are you okay?”

A little hiccup greeted her. “I’ve, uh, I’ve been better.”

A silent war waged between the desire to stay on the line and comfort Kara and the need to go back and make sure those men never felt safe again, never enjoyed the security they’d ripped away from her little sister, the sad girl with nightmares full of burning worlds and goodbyes too numerous for any child to have already made.

“Are you okay, Alex?”

“Me?” Alex let out a bark of laughter that held no mirth. “I’m the one who should be asking that.”

“You can hurt too. I know—I mean, it’s not like aliens were the only ones Hessler and Lane were campaigning against.”

“It’s fine.”

“Alex, I know that voice. You can’t just—do you want me to fly up there?”

“No!” Eshe startled at the volume. “No, you can’t! They’re burning things and attacking aliens and just no, please don’t. Please, please. I need you to be safe.”

“Okay, but, Alex? So do you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I get it, Kara.” She heard the sigh over the line. “I love you.”

“You too.”

They walked in silence for a while longer until they were back on campus. Finally Eshe cleared her throat. “She’s why this one mattered so much, huh?”

“What?”

“Your sister. She’s…she’s not from around here, is she?”

Alex let out a shuddering exhale, swallowing back the urge to deny, to yell and threaten the woman who was keeping her moving. Knowing Eshe volunteered with enough alien refugee groups not to go telling people helped curb the first instinct to push her away. “No, she’s not,” Alex finally admitted

“Well hopefully she’s gonna be alright. It’ll suck, but…if she’s anything like you, she’s a fighter.”

Alex shrugged. “She’s different. She’s…” She swallowed heavily, feeling tears prickling at her eyes but refusing to let them fall. “She’s too good for this world. And these—these fucking assholes they can’t—they won’t—god!” The last word was a shout again, and Alex struck out with her foot, denting one of the large garbage bins outside a campus building and, she thought to herself, possibly splitting a toenail in the process. Before she could punch the stone wall, though, she felt warm hands wrap around her bicep and pull her back.

“No you don’t.”

“It’s not fair.” The voice seemed to come from somewhere else, the broken tone barely registering to Alex as her own.

“It’s not,” Eshe repeated back to her, stroking her fingers up and down Alex’s arms until some of the tension eased out of them. “I get the fear and the anger and the rage, okay? I promise, I’m not telling you they aren’t real or that you can’t feel them. But having a broken hand isn’t gonna help anything.”

Without thinking, Alex surged forward and crashed her lips into Eshe’s—more need than finesse as she clutched at the only thing making her feel sane, like she could do this, like tomorrow would come, and they would face it, would make it through.

“Not like this,” Eshe whispered, pushing Alex back.

“I shouldn’t have”—Alex gasped for breath, the tears finally coming in earnest, streaking her cheeks with wet tracks—“I didn’t want to end things.”

“I know.”

_“I just—it’s not—I love spending time with you. So much. Too much.” Alex looked up at her through thick eyelashes, the pain etched so clearly into her features that Eshe knew what was coming before she’d even managed the words. “But I need to focus. And with you…you make me want things I can’t afford to want right now.”_

_Eshe nodded, slow and steady. “Okay.”_

_“Okay?” Alex blinked. “You’re not…you’re not mad? Or…or upset? Not that I want you to be upset! I don’t. I just, I mean, I’d be mad at me too. I kind of am mad at me.”_

_“What good would it do?” She managed a sad smile. “You’re on track to graduate in three years with half the coursework for a PhD already done.” A nudge to Alex’s shoulders. “You’re going places, and if you feel like you can’t do it with a girlfriend, then I get it. I’m not about to be the one that holds you back—not when you’re the kind of person that’s gonna change the world.”_

“I should go.” Alex spun on her heels, half-walking half-running back to her dorm.

“Alex! Alex, wait!”

But she couldn’t do this now—not like this.

\---

It took the full spring semester for Alex to find her equilibrium again. Maybe equilibrium was the wrong word. But drive. Ambition. A revamped sense of purpose. She’d gotten accepted into Stanford’s joint MD/PhD program with a focus in Astrobiology. Of course, it’d have been hard for them to turn her down, given that she’d taken most of the grad offerings as a second- and third-year in undergrad and had a full year’s worth of experience in Dr. Tompkins’ lab. And, because she was Alex, she already had her proposal ready for a dissertation project that focused on adapting Earth medicine and surgical techniques to alien bodies, plus plans to work with an advanced grad student in the joint Social Work and Public Health doctoral program who was doing fieldwork among alien refugee communities to figure out what their biggest health concerns and needs were. After a few long talks with J’onn over spring break, Alex’s dream of working in some prestigious hospital had given way to thoughts of clinics in alien neighborhoods…traveling medical services…surgery for those whose bodies didn’t get taught in med school classes…

For the moment, though, sitting out on the sandy beaches behind her childhood home, Alex was focusing on what the summer would hold: her own apartment and finally living in something other than campus housing; another few months spent working full-time in Professor Tomkins’ lab; zipping around town on her newly acquired, only slightly used motorcycle that had carried her down the windy back roads all the way to Midvale for the graduation party her mom was insisting on throwing, even though Alex hadn’t walked with her class, having pretty much already been a grad student at the time. (She did, however, after a series of stern lectures, swear that she would let her mother come to all graduate degree ceremonies and take thousands of pictures without one single word of complaint.)

“Alexandra Danvers!”

Alex’s head spun around fast enough to nearly pull a muscle in her neck, and she blinked up at her mother’s irate expression. “Uh…yeah?”

“Why is there a motorcycle in my driveway?”

Kara snorted loudly from her spot next to Alex, sprawled happily on her blanket, her fingers tracing patterns in the sand that Alex suspected might have been old Kryptonian symbols or letters. “Busted,” she sing-songed.

“Did you know about this?” It was Alex’s turn to snicker. “Don’t think that I won’t come down to National City to ground you myself, Kara!”

“Alex is the one who went and bought herself a motorcycle!”

“What the hell, Kara?”

“Sorry.” She didn’t look at all repentant.

“You are in medical school, Alexandra. How in the world can you justify the risks of riding on something like that?”

“Come on, Mom, I’m super safe riding it.” Alex barely took a breath—not wanting to give Eliza a chance to start voicing more complaints—before launching into her rhapsodic praise about comparative fuel efficiency: “With Hessler in office and his cronies running the EPA, we all need to be doing our part!” From there, it was a whole litany of reasons: never needing to worry about fitting into parking spaces and the ease of coming down to Kara in National City and the benefits of looking very cool for the girls on campus and being able to make it to the lab for her internship without waiting for the bus on weekends and also did she mention how much fun it was? It wasn’t until the end when she found her mother and Kara staring at her that she realized _how much_ of her regular speech she’d given, wholly unedited, to the woman who, as far as Alex was concerned, still thought she was as straight as they came.

“Well, I expect that you’re using protection in…all of these endeavors?”

“Oh god,” Alex groaned, burying her face in her hands.

Kara chose that moment to head inside, clearly stifling a laugh behind her hand.

“Mom, I didn’t—I mean—I had a plan for telling you.” That plan involved something like a long-term girlfriend who she could bring home and let her presence kind of take care of the whole ordeal for her.

Eliza shook her head as she carefully sunk down to her knees on the blanket Kara had abandoned, wrapping an arm around Alex. “I’m not upset.”

“Oh. Um, cool. That’s…thanks.”

Then Eliza pulled back, a smile Alex knew all too well curling up the corners of her mouth. “Is there someone I might get to meet?”

Alex’s thoughts flashed to Eshe, who was spending the summer back home in Metropolis working in a health clinic. They’d stayed in touch, stayed friends even—something Alex considered a feat in and of itself with the hours they both worked—but they could never get the timing right for anything more. The summers, when Alex’s workload was lighter, saw Eshe back in Metropolis. And when Eshe wanted to take Alex to dinner during the school year, Alex was always desperately trying to finish lab reports or clean her data or test “just this one more thing.” Last Alex heard, Eshe had started dating some girl she’d met at a sit-in over at the courthouse. “Uh, no. No one in particular.”

“Have you kept in touch with Vicki?”

“What?”

Eliza smiled, looking innocent, like she hadn’t just dredged up a name Alex hadn’t heard in nearly three years. “Oh nothing. I’d just wondered if perhaps…but you said there wasn’t anyone.”

“No, Mom.” Alex shook her head, grimacing at the memories of the messy Halloween party kiss and everything that had followed. “She’s not—no, not an option.”

“Okay, okay. Well, there _is_ a new grad student in my office who wears one of those little rainbow flag pins on her jacket. If you’d like I could—”

“No! Mom, please don’t say anything to her about me.”

“Fine!” She held her hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m just saying, it might be nice if you had someone to bring you out this way every so often…”

“I’ll be sure to ride my bike around town and try to stir up some interest,” Alex grumbled.

“So long as you’re wearing a helmet.”

Alex rolled her eyes even though she most definitely did wear a helmet. She didn’t have a death wish, after all. She glanced up at the feeling of a warm hand squeezing her shoulder.

“Thank you for trusting me.”

“Oh. Um, yeah. Thanks for, you know, not being mad or upset about it.”

“Oh, sweetie, I could never. You are my daughter, and I love you. Always.”

Alex ducked her head, covertly rubbing her eyes against the denim of her jacket to catch any errant tears that had dared to fall. “Thanks.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up on anti-alien xenophobia and brief medical stuff  
> I really love world-building, so this was one of my favorite chapters to write (and we'll come back to what happened in between some of those headlines later on!). I hope you all enjoy too!

Looking back on it decades later, Kara would measure her final years at NCU by the headlines and biggest news stories and the all-consuming fear that went with them.

October 2, 2009: “Less than 9 months after taking office, Charles Hessler has died, making his the second shortest term served by a President of the United States of America.”

October 3, 2009: “Vice President Samuel Lane, retired General of the U.S. Army, has assumed the duties of President, vowing to work harder than ever to advance Hessler’s goals for the future of the country.”

November 1, 2009: “In advance of midterm elections, President Lane has issued an executive order demanding the registration of all aliens in the country: ‘It’s our world. We deserve to know who’s here.’”

November 2, 2009: “Senator Marsdin speaks out against President Lane’s plan: ‘This is not the kind of welcome we should show to refugees.’”

November 30, 2009: “Lame duck representatives finally end weeks-long filibuster to delay the passage of the new Alien Immigration Act.”

December 3, 2009: “Cat Grant speaks out: ‘President Lane’s AIA is nothing more than a shameful return to the worst parts of American history.’”

December 18, 2009: “Cat Grant and others sign a pledge vowing to leave their businesses safe havens for unregistered aliens. Lane warns of harsh penalties for those who refuse to comply.”

January 29, 2010: “CatCo Plaza destroyed in a series of coordinated bombings. Dozens dead, hundreds hospitalized, and the CEO herself unaccounted for.”

February 4, 2010: “The question on everyone’s lips: Where is Cat Grant?”

February 27, 2010: “A series of brutal assaults have rocked the streets of Opal City. Congressman Ryan blames influx of new alien residents.”

March 30, 2010: “Cat Grant returns with tall tales of kidnapping and abuse by government agents.”

April 11, 2010: “CatCo stock plummets with President Lane’s condemnation of lies being marketed as news.”

June 5, 2010: “Superman brought down with what spectators are describing as glowing green bullets. Others describe a large green alien flying off with his body, a report that has us asking: Is this the newest spate of alien-on-alien crime?”

July 7, 2010: “Superman seen once more in the skies above Metropolis, but not everyone is ready to celebrate his return.”

August 1, 2010: “Amid the heat wave sweeping through the country, a series of alien attacks have tensions running high.”

September 16, 2010: “CatCo shutters the doors of its long-standing television network after months in the red.”

October 2, 2010: “On the anniversary of Hessler’s death, President Lane announces plans for wide-scale deportations of any alien not in compliance with AIA regulations.”

October 6, 2010: “Democratic Party fissures over proposed deportations with some asking: Why shouldn’t they have to follow the laws too?”

November 3, 2010: “After a night of sweeping victories for the Republican Party, President Lane looks forward to enjoying majorities in both the House and the Senate.”

November 7, 2010: “Rumors circulate of a series of illegal alien shelters run by none other than Cat Grant popping up around the country.”

December 24, 2010: “Breaking: reports just in of an attack on Cat Grant and family.”  
“Alien presence reported at the scene. Witnesses testify to suspect’s having the same powers as Superman.”  
“Cat Grant’s child disappears with alien. National City police have announced a manhunt. Suspect is dangerous and should not be approached. Report any sightings directly to the alien hotline of the NCPD offices.”

December 25, 2010: “Cat Grant denounces what she calls a ‘witch hunt’ ongoing in National City. Claims the attack on her home was perpetrated by government actors and that her son is safe with someone she trusts.”

December 27, 2010: “President Lane warns citizens not to believe CatCo news. ‘Cat Grant is under the sway of dangerous influences. She cannot be trusted to keep this country safe.’”

February 1, 2011: “Checkpoints have been set up along major roads, in bus and train stations, and in government buildings, as the first wave of President Lane’s crackdown on illegal aliens begins.”

March 15, 2011: “President Lane deems his sweeping new legislative agenda a victory with more than 500 aliens who failed to register already deported and thousands of new jobs created in the process.”

\---

Kara barely managed to finish her last few courses, didn’t walk with her class at graduation, asked that they not print her name in the program, even though she’d earned the _summa cum laude_ designation.

After three months spent laying low in Midvale, she moved back to National City, the epicenter of alien resistance to Lane’s deportations. Eliza had panicked, but when J’onn announced his intentions to move with Kara, followed closely by Alex’s own news that she and a fellow grad student had gotten funding to go do research and fieldwork in National City, she let herself believe that Kara would at least have a support network there to keep her safe.

When Kara told her friends that she was moving into a house with one of her mom’s friends, they all laughed and told her she was crazy. Who chooses to waste their years of freedom living with a guy that might as well be a parent? Kara didn’t tell that she hadn’t felt free in years, didn’t try to explain that freedom for her meant living with one of the only people who could possibly understand what she was going through, who prayed with her to gods unknown on this planet, who grounded her with meditation and honed her powers until she was as precise and focused and strong enough to be everything Lane feared people like her were.

After a few months spent laying low, living off her savings and J’onn’s generosity in opening up his doors and kitchen to her, Kara began looking for a job. She didn’t dare venture into mainstream businesses, fearing that the forged documents that had once held up under government scrutiny no longer would. She tried CatCo, only to find that they had no funding for new staff, that some of the existing positions were already being paid out of Cat’s own pockets instead of the profits that had disappeared once almost all of their advertisers pulled out.

On her way out of the building after being given the bad news, a young man in a dark navy cardigan grabbed her and pulled her off to the side. “Look, I, um, I don’t know you really. Or at all.”

Kara nodded, her whole body tensed and ready for a fight.

“I’m just the IT guy here, but you should know that your papers—they don’t stand up to the level of scrutiny Lane’s guys have put in place as part of standard hiring procedures.” The words rushed out of him in a single breath, and he looked up at Kara with what seemed like genuine concern.

“Oh. Thanks for telling me.”

He nodded. “I, um, Cat’s always looking for volunteers at the shelters. There’s no real salary to be had there, but you get free meals and housing if you need it. And any reports about jobs where they won’t ask for papers—they get circulated through the shelters first.”

“And you are?”

“Winn. Winn Schott.” He stuck out a hand that Kara cautiously shook.

“Why are you telling me all this? I mean, I appreciate it, but…”

He gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “No one deserves to be judged for something they can’t control.”

“Well, thank you, Winn Schott.”

On her way out the door, she thought she heard him mumbling something about “and maybe you’d like to grab coffee sometime,” but she was already gone. Besides, she didn’t have time to be distracted by romance.

\---

“I mean, shouldn’t we start at the shelters?” Alex asked around a bite of pizza.

Aisha shook her head, and Alex fought back the urge to sigh. She liked Aisha, she did, but god she’d never undertaken team research like this before. It was one thing to work in the same lab, but spending every single day out in the field together was…a lot.

“You gonna give me a reason or just leave it at no? Because I have to say, we’re supposed to be interviewing aliens, and the shelters where they live seem like an excellent place to find them.”

“Yeah, find them, sure. But what do you think they’re gonna do when you show up in a shelter, the one place where they think they might be safe, and immediately explain that, oh, actually, you’re human, but you really want to talk to them about their health concerns and vulnerabilities.”

“But I want to help! I don’t want to _give_ them diseases; I want to cure them, make sure they’re getting the medical care they need.”

Aisha sighed, setting down her soda and moving around to plop down next to Alex on the sofa. She tucked one leg underneath herself and turned to look Alex face-to-face. “I get it. I happen to trust you. But that’s because I got to know you first. I heard about the kinds of ideas you had, the sorts of research you wanted to do, and then I sought you out. Don’t you get why that half is important?”

“I guess. It’s just—I’m not showing up with guns and a badge or anything. Just a pen and a notebook.”

“But research about aliens getting out can be just as dangerous, Alex.”

“I know! I’m not saying it’s not.” Alex groaned, rubbing at her eyes. She hated feeling like she could never say the right thing. “It matters to me. Don’t you get that?” She wanted to point upstairs to J’onn and Kara and make Aisha understand that it mattered on a personal level, that she was fucking living with two aliens that had made it to the short list of the four people in her life she’d do absolutely anything for.

“You keep saying that, Alex. For months you have been saying that. And I believe you, I do. It matters to me too. But it’s not how this kind of fieldwork goes. You’ve gotta wait for them to hear about you, build confidence and trust for months, then be there when _they_ need you, be there waiting when _they_ are finally ready to talk.”

“But what if”—Alex cleared her throat as her voice cracked—“what about the ones who get hurt or sick in the meantime? The longer we go without information, the more people that will die.” She swallowed heavily, hating the tears she could feel prickling at the corners of her eyes.

“That right there? That’s why I wanted to work with you, Alex. Now just trust me—this stuff? The interviews? This is what I’m good at. Follow my lead, and I promise, you’ll start getting the information you need to help in the ways that you can.”

\---

It was during month two of slow-going progress that was only just then starting to feel like something Alex might consider progress at all that Kara approached Alex about one of the shelter residents who’d been experiencing pain for a few days but had woken up that morning unable to put any weight on her right leg.

After a moment’s hesitation, Alex called Aisha, and after a few brief pleasantries, she relayed all the details Kara had given her. “This woman already wants a doctor, but she can’t go to anyone because, well, she’s got shimmery purple skin and some extra appendages that doctors wouldn’t understand and no papers to even get her through the door in the first place.”

There was a long pause before Aisha spoke again. “Alright, but I’d like to come with you.”

“Fine. Meet me at the house in twenty. We’ll go over with my sister.”

“Wait. Why’s your sister going?”

It was Alex’s turn to pause before finally admitting, “She works there.”

In the silence that followed Alex’s pronouncement, she imagined all the reasons why Aisha might be mad at her.

“And you never leveraged that connection to try to get your way in early?”

“I—that space—it matters to my sister. I didn’t want to put her place there in jeopardy if I wasn’t welcome.”

“You know something?”

“What?” Alex sighed.

“I was right about choosing you as the person I wanted to work with.”

\---

As it turned out, the problem was as simple as a miniscule shard of aluminum that had gotten caught in in Zeela’s foot—a metal that had been nonexistent on her home planet and created a toxic compound when it interacted with her blood.

The whole time Alex worked—having to carefully cut open the soft, fleshy bottom of Zeela’s foot, then extract the metal and thoroughly cleanse the area, and finally apply a mixture of the healing cream she’d been using on the closed wound and a human antibacterial spray before stitching her back up—another alien stood watch. She was tall—at least a head taller than Alex—with long fingers that she drummed against her chin as she tracked Alex’s every movement. When Alex finished giving care instructions to Kara and a still slightly out of it Zeela, the watching woman motioned to a side room. “Would you join me for a minute?”

Catching sight of Aisha nodding out of the corner of her eye, Alex agreed and followed her.

“You are human.”

It wasn’t a question, but Alex nodded anyway.

“You do not make the same assumptions other human doctors do.”

“Oh, uh, no…my mother works with alien populations sometimes, so I knew better than to assume.”

The woman nodded to herself. “I am glad Zeela had someone here to help her when I failed.”

“Are you two…close?”

The corners of her mouth quirked up into something like a smile that revealed rows of sharp, bright white teeth. “No more than any other two people here. Which is to say, I know more about her than anyone out there, but not the kind of relationship you seem to think we may have.”

Alex felt her cheeks flush, and she rubbed her hand along the back of her neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. You were just—you never left her side, and, uh, in a lot of human cultures that might mean you were family or—or something.”

“I was a healer on my home planet.”

“Oh wow. Hey, I’m sorry if I overstepped. I didn’t—” A wave of a hand cut her off.

“We are not from the same planet, and I had never met a L’ranian before this shelter. I could identify the site of the inflammation, but I didn’t realize that something could have embedded itself within her skin.” Alex nodded. “My people—our skin is impenetrable by most things on your planet. The idea of a border to the world being opened and violated by something so small…it did not cross my mind.”

“Sort of like Kryptonians?”

“Yes, although your Kara tells me there is an element that can hurt Kryptonian skin as well.”

Alex’s hands curled into fists, and she was immediately on high alert.

“Please, do not worry about me. I mean her no harm. She’s done nothing but good here, and I can see that she means a great deal to you.”

“How can you see that?”

A moment’s hesitation. Then: “Well, I might be able to read human thoughts.”

“Oh.” Even after years of knowing J’onn, who at least refrained from using his powers most of the time, Alex still hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea that someone might be able to hear her thoughts.

“I assume you can understand the need for caution about those we let in these doors.”

“Yeah, of course. It’s just one of those things, you know? Kinda freaks you out.”

She nodded in understanding. “My name is Amak. Here, giving one’s real name is a sign of trust. I hope you can receive it as such.”

“Alex Danvers. Er, technically it’s Alexandra, but I prefer Alex.”

“Thank you for your help, Alex.”

“I actually, um, I’m trying to get more involved.”

Amak inclined her head, which Alex took as a sign to keep going.

“I guess maybe you already know about what happened with Kara—”

“I cannot gain access to your memories, only your thoughts and emotions in the current moment.”

“Ah, okay. Well, Kara grew up with me. She’s my sister. And a few years ago, she got sick. Like, really sick. Only no one knew what to do. We didn’t have any of the technological advances necessary to cure her with Kryptonian medicine, and it wasn’t like we could take her to a regular doctor.”

“Was this early in 2007?”

“Uh, yeah, actually.”

Amak closed her eyes as she leaned against one of the walls. “Many, many died here that winter.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It spread so quickly. Panic everywhere. You could taste it in the air. Waves and waves of desperation and worry and fear. Fear for sick family members. Fear that they’d be next.”

“Kara had been in National City for a school trip.”

“It was highly contagious among the groups vulnerable to it. Some experienced it as something more akin to—what is it you humans call it? A chill?”

“A cold.”

“Right. But for many, it was a death sentence.”

The revelation weighed heavily on Alex—a reminder of what might have happened to Kara had she not been surrounded by scientists working day in and day out to save her. “My mother is a doctor. Not a medical doctor, but she knows a lot about aliens, especially Kryptonians. I think it was close—closer than we wanted to admit—but after a while Kara got better.” Alex crossed her arms over her chest, holding them tight around her. “After that, I realized that I wanted to be a doctor for people like Kara—people who couldn’t go to regular doctors, whose concerns weren’t the same as ours.”

“I’ve heard about you. You and your friend. You’ve been reaching out, looking for people to talk to, yes?”

“We have.” Alex hoped they hadn’t overstepped.

“You should start with those of us who were doctors and healers on our home planets.”

“Yeah, that would be amazing. I mean, there must already be so much knowledge out there that’s just not making it into spaces like university classrooms.”

“We have our reasons for not wanting it in classrooms. Your faculty, they are not innocent. They take money from your government, your president. They track our movements, our planets, our means of travel.”

Alex blinked slowly as Amak’s words stirred up vague memories of emails about possible governmental funding from groups like DoD. She wondered if DoD wasn’t code for DEO sometimes. “My funding isn’t tied to anything like that, I promise. And it didn’t come with any strings attached about making our research publicly available. Aisha made sure.” Alex wondered how many other things Aisha had considered during the application process.

“That’s good. That will be useful if I am to help convince others to speak with you.”

“Would you do that?”

A haunted look flashed across Amak’s features, momentarily darkening her light—unearthly light—eyes. “I watched too many die to risk turning down the possibility of help when it arrives.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Heads up on anti-alien violence and not particularly detailed descriptions of injuries

After a full year of interviews and long conversations that had, over time, grown into friendships, Alex was having a hard time finding the motivation to return to Stanford. But, as her mother kept reminding her, it was three months. Just three months to go back, get her final few lab hours in, and defend the dissertation she’d put together with the fieldwork they’d done over the year. After that, she could fulfill the requisite residency from anywhere she chose, and she had already matched with National City Hospital.

“Alex!” Aisha called. “If you don’t hurry we’re gonna be late to our own farewell party!”

“I’m coming!” Alex yelled up the stairs from around the toothbrush still sticking out of her mouth. She shoved her feet into her black boots, half-stumbling back to the bathroom. At least the hair was easy enough to pass off as intentionally disheveled… She had the short haircut she’d gotten on an impulse several months into the fieldwork to thank for that.

Eventually she made it back up, finding Aisha perched on the arm of the couch, tapping her foot. “About damn time, Danvers.”

Alex opened her mouth to shoot back a teasing _You love me, though_ , but she bit back the impulse. Aisha had been dropping hints that she wanted to talk to Alex about something serious in private for a couple of months, but Alex kept stalling and pushing them back—it was easy enough when there was always some deadline looming. It wasn’t as if she didn’t find Aisha attractive; hell, she was gorgeous. But dating a colleague she spent all of her time with every day seemed like a recipe for disaster. Now that they were done, well…maybe. Though she was also fairly certain Aisha was planning to travel east after defending.

“Alex? You okay?”

“Fine.” She shook her head; tonight was a night for celebration, not dwelling on what ifs and possibilities and what felt like the inevitable end of relationships that hadn’t even begun. “Sorry, just weird to think that we’ll be leaving this week.”

“I know.” A wistful smile pulled at the corners of Aisha’s mouth. “It feels like home these days.”

Alex swallowed heavily as she murmured her agreement. With Kara and J’onn upstairs in the house and her mom stopping by somewhat frequently for visits, it did more than feel like home; it _was_ home.

As they walked over to the shelter, they chatted about their plans for the summer, and Alex laughed as Aisha complained about how much longer her dissertation had to be than Alex’s—“It’s easy for you to say you’ll be done in another month or two! Double—no, triple that, and then you can check back in with me.”

They arrived a couple of minutes before Kara and J’onn came in carrying stacks of pizza boxes and bottles of soda.

“Let me help!” Zeela rushed forward, reaching out and taking half of the pizza boxes for Kara, leading the way to the common area where several of the volunteers had set up large round tables for the gathering.

“I’ll go let everyone know the food’s here,” Kara offered, bounding out the doorway and down the corridors she’d gotten to know so well over the past year or so.

“You’ll be missed,” Zeela said as she began setting up stacks of plates and napkins.

Aisha nodded in understanding. “We’ll miss you all too. I hope our paths cross again.”

“I suspect I’ll be back in National City before you can even get around to missing me,” Alex added with a forced air of humor. Despite all the conversations she’d had with Aisha about “deep” fieldwork, the extent of her connection to the alien community in National City had taken her by surprise. She’d heard stories of loved ones lost not only to dying planets and wars waged galaxies away, but also loved ones lost to simple things, like untreated infections and injuries left to worsen over long weeks. She took solace in the idea that she might be able to help with something. The raids were getting worse, and President Lane more vile with every passing day, but at least she might be able to train trusted people to help, might be able to one day open her own practice to serve the alien community, rather than doing something behind closed doors as the current plan stood.

“Do we yell surprise?” came the loud voice of Bex, one of the younger aliens in the group whose boisterous personality had brought a degree of levity to the shelter that was, at times, rather welcome.

“Those are for human birthdays only.”

“Nuh-uh, I saw on TV these people yelling surprise for something else. I think a wedding.”

“An anniversary. You don’t surprise someone with a wedding, duh.”

Alex chuckled at the bickering teenagers; some things really did seem consistent across the planets.

“Alex!” One of them waved her over. “Have you ever had a party where they yell surprise?”

“A surprise party? Uh, my mom tried to throw me one for my 10th birthday, but I found an invitation in her office, so it wasn’t actually a surprise.”

“See! Birthdays only.” Trav stuck his tongue out at Bex.

“Well, no, I mean, I guess most parties could be made surprise parties. I just, I don’t know, it seems easier when everyone’s on the same page. And on that note, you should all go get in line for pizza before it’s nothing but veggie left.”

“Hurry!” Bex looped their arms around the whole group, dragging them forward with a touch too much force as they tripped over their feet in the rush.

“You might want to follow your own advice.” Alex startled slightly as Aisha’s fingers grazed over her shoulders.

“Wait, you didn’t get me any?”

Aisha laughed at the look of complete and utter betrayal on Alex’s face. “Nah, just wanted to see how upset you’d be at the idea of getting stuck with veggie pizza.”

“I mean, it’s fine…it’s just not pepperoni, ya know?”

Aisha leveled Alex with a long stare.

“Right, right. Lifelong vegetarian. I forgot.”

“You can remember where every little bone and vein is in the human body—and the body of several aliens these days, I might add—and yet every time I say no to bacon…”

“I know, I know! It’s just so delicious.” Alex knocked her shoulder against Aisha’s. “You should be lucky I like you enough to want to share my bacon at all.”

Aisha’s smile grew more serious as the seconds passed. “I’m really lucky to have had you with me this year. I just…there aren’t many people I’d have felt comfortable doing something like this with, but you’re one of them.”

“Thanks for trusting me with this. And being patient in the beginning.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for saving the lives of about a dozen of our interviewees.”

Alex had to bite back a shudder at the reminder. It wasn’t quite the alien flu levels of contagion, but over the winter some nasty bug had swept in, and with the tight living quarters in the shelter, everyone seemed to realize how bad it could have been if it weren’t for Alex, Amak, and Eliza’s timely intervention in isolating the strain and working tirelessly in a makeshift lab to create antibiotics to treat it.

Once they were seated, Amak stood up, her glass held high. “A toast.” A sea of cups raised right along with hers. “To Alex and Aisha. We owe you a debt of gratitude. We are not a community that can afford to welcome strangers easily, but you proved your loyalty time and again. You came as strangers, but you leave as family.”

A rousing chorus of cheers met her words, and Alex caught Aisha wiping at the skin beneath her eyes, which made her feel a little bit better about the tears she was still trying to blink back herself.

After the toast, chatter eventually broke out, allowing the emotional heaviness of the moment to dissipate. Alex chatted with Zeela for a while, before moving back to Kara’s table, wanting to soak up her final days with her sister before they needed to separate once more, even if this time it would only be for a few months.

“You’ll be careful while I’m gone?”

“Alex,” Kara sighed, throwing an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “I was okay before you got here, right?” The fact that doing okay included hiding who she was from everyone outside of the shelter and living with a baseline level of fear at all times went unspoken; it was life now, and the shelter had, if nothing else, given her a sense of purpose, like she was doing something good for the world. In the weeks before she found the shelter, she’d called Alex crying, wishing she’d been more like Kal-El. Only lately, Superman wasn’t quite the hit he once was, and more often than not, his help was rejected when he arrived on scene. Even those still loyal to him feared publicly admitting it.

“I have to worry about you. Big sister duty and all that.”

“By that logic…” With a flash of movement too fast for Alex’s eyes to track it, Kara snatched the last slice of pizza off of Alex’s plate.

“Hey!”

“Mine. Little sister privileges.”

“You’re the absolute worst.”

“Nope.”

“Are too.”

“Hmmm.” She tapped her chin a few times. “I’ve considered your suggestion, but it’s a no.”

“Just for that, I’m not gonna leave you any of my snacks. I’ll pack every last one of them and take them with me when I go.”

“Fine.” Kara dragged the word out into several long syllables as she dropped Alex’s slice of pizza back onto her plate, plucking a pepperoni off of it and popping it into her mouth.

As Alex ate, she began chatting again. “I got my advisor to sign off on National City Hospital as the last stop post-defense, so I should be back here for good around September, maybe October.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Yeah, so, you know, if anyone here needs medical help, I’ll be in the area.”

“Don’t worry too much.”

“I’m not worried.”

Kara arched one eyebrow. “We might not be related, but we’ve got the same crinkle.”

“Ugh, damn crinkle.”

“At least you can get botox.”

“Yes, yes, the joys of being human instead of, oh, I don’t know, barely aging.”

The comment earned her a large grin. “But seriously, Amak and some of the other healers and doctors learned a lot during the Sunday clinics.”

“No, I know. It’s not that I don’t think they’re capable, it’s just…none of them know that much about Earth technology." The reminder of Amak's horror at seeing a table of scalpels, or what she'd called "primitive torture instruments," had never quite left Alex. Apparently the idea of cutting into a body took some getting used to for those raised on planets with nanotechnology and healing pods lightyears ahead of what Earth scientists had yet invented. "And they can’t exactly walk into a medical supply store or even order things to be shipped here.”

“You’ll be back soon. And until then, we’ve got reserves of stuff and both you and Eliza on speed dial, okay? You worry about finishing those degrees and let us take care of ourselves down here.”

“Alright, alright.”

“I think we could use some dessert and music to lift the mood, huh?”

Before Alex could agree, the sound of glass shattering made everyone freeze. A hush fell over the room as everyone tried to figure out where the noise had come from, each one of them looking around, hoping a fellow friend had merely dropped and broken a cup.

“Run!” Kara screamed a second before a _boom_ sounding from the entrance made the floorboards shudder as the wall separating the rooms seemed to come rushing at them, plaster turned to shrapnel as it flew through the air.

Then flames. Flames everywhere. Licking up and down the walls as smoke filled the air.

Within a few moments, everyone had sprung into action.

“Aisha!” She’d been sitting right beside the wall. Panic clawed at Alex’s chest as she ran towards the flames, ignoring everyone yelling at her to go the other way.

“Aisha!” She was nearly sobbing, catching sight of bloodied faces and deep cuts.

“Aisha!”

“Alex, I’m fine! Go!”

Alex blinked. It was Aisha’s voice. And Aisha’s clothes. But not her face.

“Alex, it’s me. I—I’ve been trying to tell you for a couple of months.”

“Oh.”

“I’m fine, but you need to go.”

Alex forced herself to nod, watching for a few seconds as Aisha helped guide a few of the dazed but not too injured people from her table towards the back entrance.

As soon as the reality of the situation hit Alex again, she turned and bolted towards the tables furthest away from the blast zone, directing everyone to the back exit until a voice rang out over the chaos: “They’re waiting!”

“Stay here,” Alex ordered, taking the hallway at a sprint until she could peer through the peephole to the reinforced back door. A group of men armed to the teeth had circled around it, evidently waiting to see who might come rushing out. Bex looked over at Alex, their eyes wide and frightened. “Don’t open that door. We’re figuring this out, but stay here. Don’t let anyone out, okay?”

“Yeah.” Their voice shook, but they took their place in front of the door with a clear sense of duty.

Another sprint back down the hallways. As Alex went, she spouted words: “Surrounded,” “Stay calm,” “We’ll figure this out.” She hated that everyone looked not only scared but resigned to a fate they had expected for too long.

By the time Alex made it back to Kara, the common room had filled with thick black smoke. “They’ve got the back exit surrounded. We can’t get them out there.”

Kara chewed on her lip for a moment, before giving a resolute nod. “The basement should be safe for now. Get everyone down there, and I’ll take care of the fire.”

“You mean—”

“Please, Alex, just go.”

And with that, Alex was off, directing everyone down to the basement, passing the leftover bottles of water and soda down with them in case it took a while.

She came back to find the fire out, but Kara busy using her heat vision to solder together the folding metal chairs to create makeshift beams to stabilize the crumbling walls. “Alex, people are hurt,” Kara managed, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the two tables that had been closest to the wall during the explosion.

“Fuck.” She could see a few limbs that would definitely need to be set. “I’ll be right back!” She took off towards the basement once more, clattering halfway down the stairs before calling out: “Anyone strong enough to carry someone, come with me. And Amak, I could use your help with broken bones and assessing needs before we go moving people.”

Within a few minutes, Alex and Amak had divvied up the bodies into two groups. They moved systematically, checking for major trauma and assessing consciousness as they went. For each body that seemed safe to move, they motioned to the five or six aliens who had followed them up to carry bodies and had them taken downstairs.

At the end, there were still two aliens who required urgent medical care. “Look, I can start treating things now, but I’m gonna need a sterile environment and far more tools than I have available here.”

Kara nodded, her face set in grim determination. “I’m going to get J’onn and your bag. You stay here.”

“Wait!” Amak held a hand up, pulling off the hooded sweatshirt she’d taken to wearing, claiming that Earth’s climate was much too cool this far from the Equator.

“I’m fine.”

“It will hide your face.”

“Right.” And then she was off.

What felt like hours later, though it was likely only minutes, Kara and J’onn landed beside Alex and Amak, handing over the medic’s bag. It was only then that Alex noticed the weapons and zipties they’d brought with them.

“For clearing the exits,” J’onn explained. “This building isn’t safe for inhabitation.”

“I’ve got a call into Cat to see where we can move people,” Kara added, her voice tight with emotion.

“Be safe.”

Kara and J’onn both nodded, then took off through the front to surprise the men waiting around back.

Alex tried to focus on the two mangled bodies in front of her, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and her vision kept clouding over with unshed tears.

“Let me.” Amak reached out a hand and took the bag from Alex.

“I should—I need to—”

“Give yourself a minute, Alex. You will be of more use to them once you are in control of your emotions.”

“Right.” She closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing. Only, she could hear grunts and crashing sounds from out back, and none of that was particularly conducive to relaxing.

A few short minutes later, Kara and J’onn reappeared with a pile of unconscious men, their feet and hands ziptied and weapons piled far away from them.

“Why did you bring them here?” Alex hissed.

“We need information.”

“Oh, and you think they’ll just give it to you?”

J’onn shrugged. “I think I have ways of extracting it from them and making them forget what happened here tonight.”

“Oh.”

With one threat taken care of, Alex tried to focus on the body of a young L’ranian who had been staying with Zeela for months before the shelter opened. She cleaned the deep wounds and carefully stitched them up before tying gauze tightly around the areas. Amak handed over a long piece of the table that had broken off when it went flying during the explosion. It wasn’t ideal, but it would at least keep the woman’s leg stable while they transported her.

“We need to get them back to the house.”

Kara appeared at Alex’s side a moment later. “J’onn’s finishing up with these guys now. We’re gonna go drop their bodies off far from here, but then J’onn can fly you and Amak back to the house along with Val and Yana, okay?”

“That’s great, but what about—”

“Cat’s in DC right now, but she sent the location of another shelter that’s being built. It’s not permanent, but we can get people safe for a few nights there.”

“And how are you getting them there?”

“I’ll fly.”

“Absolutely not. Kara, it’s risky enough to fly at all. You can’t be doing multiple trips with your hands full of aliens.”

Frustration and anger were etched deep on Kara’s features. “Then what do you want me to—”

“Take the van we use for supply runs. It should only take a couple of trips, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“Be safe. I love you.”

Kara wrapped her arms around Alex, letting herself take comfort in the safety of the familiar for a moment before pulling back. “You too. Always.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter today, but after the last one, I figured setting things in place before the next ordeal wouldn't be the worst thing in the world! Hope you enjoy!

Alex wasn’t sure what she’d expected of Cat Grant. A decade ago, she’d have figured she’d be some cocky little blonde who was a bit too sarcastic for her own good. The news would have her imagine some batshit-crazy, frail woman who no longer knew up from down. Kara spoke of her like a goddess walking among mere mortals.

But the woman just looked tired. Tired and angry. It was a look Alex recognized all too well.

She waited as Cat paced back and forth in the charred entryway to the old shelter, barking orders into her phone. Something about pushing up deadlines and needing a crew here yesterday.

Once she was off the phone, she ran a hand through her hair, her fingers tangling slightly in loose waves, before finally turning back to Alex. “Alex Danvers?”

“Yeah, thanks for meeting with me.”

Cat waved a hand through the air—a flicker of the woman Alex had once watched on television with her mother. “Your sister’s been a godsend. And from what I understand you’ve been doing your fair share.”

“Trying.” Alex shrugged her shoulders. The fact that Yana was still in a coma wasn’t doing much to make her feel like she’d helped, even though Kara kept trying to remind her of all the lives that had been saved.

“No, you’re helping. Accept a compliment when it’s given.”

“Right.” Alex rubbed at the back of her neck. “Um, well, I guess this is sort of on topic. Anyway, I’ll be coming back down to National City soon to do my residency at the hospital, but I was hoping to continue my work with the alien population as well.” Cat nodded, motioning for Alex to continue. “I was wondering if I might be able to use space in one of the shelters? Maybe have a room where I can keep medical supplies and a table and all that kind of stuff? I know it’s hard to come by space—”

“Would a building work better for you?”

Alex blinked. “What?”

Cat’s gaze was trained on her phone as she scrolled through something Alex couldn’t see. “Hmm, well, it’s obviously smaller than the shelters, but I acquired a house on the outskirts of town. Would that be serviceable?”

“What? I mean, well, yeah, but that’s a lot, and I imagine—”

Cat cut her off again with a single finger held in the air. “You’ll use that space only for alien patients, yes?”

“Um, yeah.”

“And you’ll continue your research into making sure they’re receiving appropriate care to best meet their health needs?”

“Of course.”

“Then I see no reason why I shouldn’t give you the house on three conditions.”

Alex blinked, trying to wrap her head around how they’d gotten from her feeling like a room in an existing shelter was a big ask to being given a whole house. “Uh, yeah, I—what are they?”

“First, if the house will be in use, I’ll want to put an individual’s name, rather than a company’s, on the deed. You’re welcome to live there—I don’t imagine you’ll need the whole house if a room would have done, though I suspect having more than a single room will be an asset.”

“Okay.” She wondered in what world receiving a free apartment was a condition that might be refused. “Thank you.”

Cat shook her head. “You’ll see; living where you work isn’t always the good thing you hope it will be.”

“Right.”

“The second condition is that after your residency ends, I would like you to work full-time at the clinic. I can provide a stipend, but most importantly, I’d like you to continue training some of the residents in the shelters so that this expertise is not limited to you and you alone.”

“Yeah, I was hoping to do some open clinic hours and maybe get some of the healers and medics I’d worked with before to rotate through with me. Hell, some of them probably still know more than I do about a lot of different planets and alien races.”

“Obviously. But recognizing existing knowledge didn’t stop me from having classes on computer usage and Earth software for my employees at CatCo. I imagine medicine looks rather different on other planets.”

“Putting it lightly.” Alex still remembered how frustrating it had been when Kara was sick and Kal-El returned from the Fortress with nothing but suggestions about the Matrix and healing technologies that didn’t even have an equivalent word in the English language—so far removed from the cultural imaginary that they would have needed to turn to scifi for their best hope at a shared language.

“My last condition is that I have one…let’s call them a VIP client. Should the need for medical attention for this individual ever arise, I ask that they be treated immediately and that the clinic be emptied of any individuals except for yourself.”

“Um…I guess, yeah, that’s fine. But, Cat?”

“Hmm?”

“If this person is important, can you at least tell me where they’re from so that I can have information ready?”

“I’m confident that you’ll be prepared.”

“How can you know that?”

Another dismissive wave of Cat’s hand. “I have my ways.”

Alex sighed. “Alright, if you insist.”

“I’ll have my lawyer prepare the documents for you. If there are any renovations you think the property needs before you start, be in touch.”

Before Alex could think of answering, Cat’s phone was ringing, and the woman was off again. Alex couldn’t help but notice the softening of her features as she picked up; she wondered if it was the kid Kara had mentioned a couple of times on the other line.

\---

“Did you see what they’re calling me?” Kara flung a newspaper down onto the kitchen table, the force of it stirring up a breeze that ruffled J’onn’s napkin.

He grimaced. “I did.”

“SuperMenace! J’onn! I stopped a city-wide disaster from happening!”

“And your first act caught on film was saving several aliens from a fire at an illegally-operated alien shelter. And, in the process of saving them, proving that you are an alien yourself.” Pressing a hand to the table, he stood up and threw the newspaper away before moving back to wrap an arm around Kara. “It’s not fair, but it’s hard to expect anything better these days.”

“I’m tired, J’onn. I am so, so tired.”

“I know,” he said, pulling her in tighter and giving her arm a squeeze.

“How do you do it?”

J’onn pulled back to go get Kara a bowl of the stew he’d been working on, trying to capture the particular flavors of the Martian equivalent of comfort food. “Do what?”

“Get through it? Stay sort of positive?”

“I spend my time with people like you and Alex and Eliza. We do what we can when we can.”

“I guess. But it never feels like enough.” Kara slumped down into her chair, stirring listlessly at the bowl of stew.

“You can’t take on too much. Caring for yourself is just as important as taking care of everyone else.”

Kara snorted. “Try telling that to Alex.”

“I do. Frequently.”

“And does she listen?”

J’onn chuckled. “It helps that I can always threaten to fly up there with her mother and make sure that she goes to bed.”

The mental image of J’onn swooping into Alex’s lab with Eliza slung over his back, a blanket and a home-cooked meal in her hands, was enough to get Kara laughing as the frustration from earlier ebbed away into a background annoyance.

“Only one more month until Alex moves back to National City now, right?”

Despite recognizing the question for what it was—a distraction and a reminder of good things to come—Kara grinned and nodded. “A little less—27 more days!”

“But who’s counting?”

“Please, don’t think I didn’t notice you making a list of Alex’s favorite foods to stock up on.”

J’onn simply smiled as he shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll be picking up Eliza’s as well.”

“How long into the drive before they start bickering do you think?” Even though things had gotten better between the mother-daughter pair since the dark months after Jeremiah’s death, they still managed to be a bit too similar for their own good, and while the fights never lasted, every visit was guaranteed to have at least one snippy moment of annoyance. Last time it’d been over which desk chair Alex should buy for proper back support, which somehow turned into a fight about whether Alex was taking care of herself properly. Kara’s bets were on something about the configuration of boxes in the back of the moving van this time around.

J’onn, per usual, opted not to place bets, instead voicing some vague hope for a safe and pleasant trip down the coast. “Is there anything I can do to help with set up at the clinic in the meantime?”

Kara shrugged. “Cat’s pretty much got it under control. She paid a team of residents from the shelter who had experience with any kind of carpentry and that sort of thing to get the rooms all set up. We’ll probably need to order more medical supplies so it’s well-stocked, but we can wait until closer to Alex’s arrival for that.”

The rest of the night was spent making plans for Alex’s arrival. J’onn had kept her room made up at the house so she’d be able to spend her first few nights next door to Kara, even though they’d move all of her things into the upstairs bedrooms at the clinic right away. J’onn finally called it a night when Kara put on some television show with singing teenagers, deciding he’d indulged in enough Earth culture for the evening.

\---

Alex felt her whole body stiffen in anger when she saw the attending physician return with handcuffs. “What are you doing? We’re supposed to be treating this patient. Our patient.”

“And we will,” Dr. Carson answered, “but we’ll need to make sure that she can’t escape when we’re finished.”

“With all due respect”—which, in her book, was absolutely none—“aren’t we supposed to be protecting the patients who come here for care? Not preparing them to be imprisoned and deported?” Memories of her days at the alien clinic working side-by-side with Aisha and Amak and Kara and even Bex, who was squeamish as hell about all things surgical but determined to help in any way they could, flitted through her thoughts, standing in sharp contrast to the day-to-day reality she’d endured at National City Hospital ever since her arrival.

“You’d do well to remember that you work in a facility that is generously funded in large part by the United States government. I’d look at your paycheck before you start choosing battles you’re never going to win.” Dr. Carson’s voice was smooth, though the words made Alex’s muscles tense with pent-up frustration that she kept pushing down, only unleashing on her rare mornings off when she could train with J’onn once more.

Alex tried to keep her movements small and subtle as she reached down and hit the pager that went straight to Kara’s phone. “There’s a difference between treating a patient with dignity and changing the law entirely.” She forced herself to smile as she bent down and began cleaning out the infected wound on the patient’s abdomen. “It’s okay,” she murmured at the hiss of pain. “We’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

“Hands,” Dr. Carson ordered, the metal of the cuffs clinking against the bed’s metal railing.

The young woman shivered, slinking away from his grip. “Maybe”—her voice wavered, and Alex could see her folding in over the pain, her body moving to protect its vulnerabilities—“I think I don’t need treatment after all.”

“Well, you’re here now, and turning you in is written into my contract. You may as well accept the treatment.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alex folded her arms over her chest, stepping between Carson and the patient.

“Alexandra, if you wish to keep your job, stand back.”

“In what world could I possibly want this job?” Alex let out a bark of laughter tinged with desperation. “You turn away alien patients. The few that manage to get in for treatment are apparently treated like criminals and shipped off to their near certain deaths or sentenced to indefinite jail time here on Earth.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair, sweeping it back off her forehead. “I became a doctor to save people. I suggest you think long and hard about what it is you’re doing and the oath you took.”

“If you walk away, you won’t ever be welcome back here again.”

“Good.” Alex threw her ID badge to the floor, crushing it beneath her heel. “Because I quit.”

She could hear surprised gasps from the nurses and other doctors around her, but Alex couldn’t be bothered. On her way out, she walked past Kara, who was crouched in a doorway waiting for her moment. “Third bed on the right. Careful of her stomach. Might have to break some cuffs.” The words were barely a whisper, but Kara nodded, giving Alex a quick wink before shooting off at top speeds.

A moment later, chaos erupted from the hallway she’d just left, and Alex smiled to herself as she strolled out a free woman. A free woman with a job that could land her in jail any day, but a free woman nonetheless.

As she swung a leg over her motorcycle to drove back to the clinic where she’d be able to treat the young woman without worrying about where she’d end up next, a sense of certainty slid over her: no matter what the future held, she’d chosen well.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the shorter last chapter, here's an extra long one! I'll be traveling a bit for the next couple of weeks, though the next two chapters are already drafted, so hopefully I'll be able to keep to posting one update per week. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so let me know what you think!   
> Heads up for some canon-typical violence in the second half of the chapter

Once the clinic became her full time job, Alex found she finally had the time needed to settle into the new space, to make it something other than a temporary way station and part-time job. During the first few weeks after quitting her job at the hospital and confirming with Cat that she could start full-time work earlier than expected (though Cat had smirked and said something about expecting this outcome all along), Kara and J’onn came over to help Alex carry boxes and set things up in exactly the order she wanted them.

After the exhilaration of the first week wore off, she found ways to silence the panic about her own uncertain future, about the fact that she would never be the proper M.D. doctor she’d staked half her childhood dreams on, by doing methodical tasks like taking inventory and making rosters of the different alien races currently in residence at the shelter to ensure she had supplies they were likely to need on hand. Of course, the letter her mom had sent telling Alex that she was proud of her for quitting, that it was proof that she’d done one thing right as a parent—a letter that Kara knew for a fact was kept in the top drawer of Alex’s desk, even if she’d deny it—had also helped to settle her nerves.

Within a month, Alex finally felt like the clinic was _hers_ in a way it hadn’t been before. There were no longer questions about where a given tool or prescription drug might be. The confusion over hours and staffing needs had abated as J’onn took over a management role, giving Alex time to focus on patients and doing research, including a joint project with Eliza’s lab up in Midvale. She and Aisha had also undertaken the creation of a massive database on alien medicine based on their field work and interviews, broken down by planet along with sections on which treatments could be mimicked with Earth technology and which medical procedures were seen as a profound violation to certain alien races and should only be done with explicit consent. For a while it existed only in words and hard-copy notes stored under lock and key, until Aisha called Alex excitedly one night after finding out that one of her childhood friends, another Durlan she’d traveled with to Earth, had extensive computer security experience and swore he could make an electronic version of their database secure enough to resist almost all hacking attempts—certainly anything launched by Earth’s primitive technologies, he’d laughed.

Even Alex’s bedroom had finally become a place where she lived instead of a place where she slept. Kara liked to take the credit for that last one; “I get that you’re mad, but now that there’s a little chocolate ice cream stain on the sofa, doesn’t it feel more lived in?” Alex maintained that it probably had more to do with simply being in the space and that it would have been homey enough without the big brown stain, thank you very much.

Kara continued to swoop in and out of the city to help avert crises, though more and more she’d limited her heroics to the alien population. It was one thing to hold up a bridge to keep it from collapsing; it was another to step between the barrel of a gun and a man screaming at her, insisting that she didn’t belong on the planet. But there were plenty of things to be done with the new National City shelter opening up, and Kara had volunteered to go scout out locations for potential shelters in other cities where Lane had stepped up the number of raids and identification checkpoints. On each visit, she’d fly in, land far enough away to avoid detection, then catch subways and buses into the heart of the city, clad in her pastel button-ups and sundresses. And for a full day, she’d be treated like a person deserving of respect. For a full day, she’d feel like if she forced her brain to stop working, she could believe that things were back to normal, that they’d jumped back in time to the days before Lane and Hessler. But then she’d catch snippets of the conversations between the agents from the newly public DEO talking about where to set up checkpoints for the day, and the reality would come crashing back down around her. This wasn’t her planet. These weren’t her people. This wasn’t some idealized version of the past. She was just lucky enough to be able to pretend for a few hours.

\---

The very beginning of the holiday season was a time of mourning as much as it was a celebration of community among National City’s alien residents. Far too many of them had lost whole planets, lost friends and family members whose memories hung heavily in the air around them, and, thanks to a raid the week of Thanksgiving, one of their own was no longer with them. Privately, a few of the aliens had been worried about how sure of himself H’roth had grown after a few successful evasions during early supply runs. He knew that the yellow sun made him stronger than most humans, and they’d seen him grow sloppy when it came to routine precautions. Of course, no one had expected him to be captured, and it took two full days after he failed to return for Cat to pass along word that he was being held in a DEO cell awaiting a decision on whether he’d be placed on the next intergalactic deportation roster or transferred to one of the DEO’s large holding facilities out in the desert and held indefinitely.

Still, they tried to cultivate some sort of festive atmosphere as November gave way to December. Many of the alien holidays and feasts didn’t have a clear calendar equivalent on Earth, so Kara suggested honoring them all at a week-long celebration.

Over the course of December, the shelter was transformed. Yana, still weak after the weeks she’d spent in a coma, managed to corral some of the younger residents into helping her string up long lines of fairy lights as the closest equivalent she could find for the ornate handmade stars that would float among the rooms for their yearly Festival of Lights. Amak, who had remained close with Zeela, helped the L’ranians to plant flowers for their yearly holiday devoted to thanking the gods for the bounty of creation and the miracle of cultivation and growth. J’onn helped run the kitchens, stirring vast pots of the Martian stew he’d finally perfected and doling it out to keep everyone full and warm, although, he could admit, the winter wasn’t exactly _cold_ by his standards. Bex, who had developed something of a crush on Alex over the months, shadowed her while she made trays and trays of latkes for an early Hanukkah celebration, only burning a handful when she got too distracted by Bex’s many questions. Eventually, Bex convinced Alex to take a break from cooking to show them and a group of their friends how to play with the dreidel Alex had brought in.

Meanwhile Kara carted in stacks of the cheaper canvases she could afford, pads of drawing paper, tubes of paint, bundles of slightly used paint brushes, boxes of colored pencils, sticks of charcoal, and even a few trays of watercolors, and converted a corner of the rec room into an impromptu art studio. She spent an afternoon reading to anyone who would listen about the Nguzo Saba, which had reminded her of some of the guilds’ celebrations back on Krypton when she first arrived on Earth. Even Cat paused her seemingly ceaseless march of work and productivity to come decorate the massive Christmas tree she’d purchased for the shelter, looking happier and less burdened than Kara had ever seen her when a whole group of the youngest aliens in the shelter slowly made their way towards the tree and her large box of ornaments to ask if they could help. That afternoon, she disappeared for half an hour before returning with Carter in tow, and Kara delighted him after he’d slowly warmed up to his surroundings by floating him up the tree to place the star topper he’d made in school at the tippy top.

For New Years Eve, they’d even gotten small sparklers on the condition that Kara be present to put them out for anyone who forgot to dunk them into the tub of water when they were done. Once the younger aliens had gone to bed, Varo and Dru pulled out a stash of alien liquors they’d managed to gather over the month, proposing a toast. Various cheers rang out around the room:

“To community!”

“To found family!”

“To Aldebaran rum!”

“To a better 2014!”

“To seeing the last of that bastard Lane!”

“To another round!”

\---

A few days after New Years, when everyone’s hangovers had finally disappeared and the reality of work settled back over them, the blaring ring of Alex’s phone woke her at an hour that felt much too early to be conscious.

“H’llo?” she mumbled, her voice still thick with sleep.

“I need you to close the clinic for today. The patient I told you about needs your attention immediately.”

Alex rubbed at her eyes, trying to rouse herself and shake off the last remnants of the sleepy fog that clung to her, making it hard to think. “Right, yeah, okay.”

“We’ll be there in 30.” Cat hung up before Alex had time to answer.

She threw off the blankets, resigning herself to a long day fueled by lots of caffeine. First things first: dealing with the handful of existing appointments on the calendar.

After rapid reassurances to J’onn that, no, she was not dying, and, yes, everything was okay, Alex was able to explain that she needed him to go through the schedule and move everyone to the next available appointment, plus have Kara circulate news at the shelters that the clinic would be closed for the day. Hopefully nothing urgent would happen while it was, but then again, Amak had a decent collection of medical supplies over at the shelter these days and could handle almost anything except major surgery.

From there, it was a matter of putting on a cup of coffee and stepping under a blast of cold water before pulling on clothes and heading downstairs to wait for Cat. Even though she wasn’t nearly so mercurial as the rumors about her tenure as CEO in the days before CatCo and the _Tribune_ went underground would have Alex believe, there was something about her that demanded attention and acquiescence.

As Alex sipped at her coffee, she watched the windows, heading downstairs and walking to the door at the sight of a black SUV pulling up the driveway. She barely had time to react before Cat was storming up the walkway, her features pinched and drawn. Alex wondered if she’d gone to bed at all the night before.

“Hey.” She threw open the door before Cat could knock. “Come in.”

“Is it clear?”

“Yeah.”

“Help me get her in.”

“Right, yeah, of course.” Alex hurried to follow after Cat—and god, how did she move so fast in heeled boots? Cat swung open the door to the backseat, where Alex found a woman sprawled out across the seats, clutching at her abdomen, where a white rag stained with red was tied around her.

“Fuck, okay, careful with the movements.”

“I know,” Cat snapped.

 _Right_. Carefully, Alex managed to lift the woman out of the car.

“I can walk.” The words were said through gritted teeth, and Cat was already shaking her head.

“She’s conscious; that’s a good sign,” Alex insisted as she tucked herself under the woman’s arm, trying to take most of the weight as Cat got the other side.

“None of this is a good sign. She’s not supposed to bleed at all!”

Deciding that outside definitely wasn’t the place for this conversation, Alex kicked the car door shut behind her and began walking towards the house. They paused only to pull the front door closed behind them and lock the deadbolt, before moving to the main room of the clinic and getting the woman set up on the table.

“Okay.” Alex straightened her back and looked between Cat and the woman groaning on her table. “Tell me everything I need to know.”

“She took a blade to the stomach, but it hasn’t healed.”

Alex’s forehead furrowed as she unpacked the statement. “Does she normally heal that quickly? There are only a few kind of aliens that could.”

“Kryptonian,” the woman on the table gasped when it became clear that Cat was hesitant to reveal more.

Trying to disguise the shocked expression—though if she were to go by Cat’s glare, she hadn’t been particularly successful—Alex nodded. “Okay. So then we’re dealing with kryptonite?”

The woman answered again. “Mixed with something.”

“It looked like they’d embedded pieces of kryptonite in a dagger of some sort, but it was enough to pierce her skin.”

“Okay, I suspect there’s probably one of those little pieces still inside of her. I’ll need to remove that. Even with it out, there’s a chance it’ll still take some time to heal, so I’ll check for any serious damage to internal organs, then stitch her up like I would any other patient. Once that’s done, we’ll get her set up under sun lamps, which should expedite the healing.”

Before she’d finished talking, Alex had already begun preparing the tools she would need, before moving to the sink to wash her hands and pull on a pair of gloves. She could hear Cat murmuring to the Kryptonian—something about everything being alright and _don’t you dare die on me_ —and when Alex turned back around, she found Cat pressing a soft kiss to the woman’s mouth, a shaking, pale hand clasped between Cat’s own.

“Is there a problem?” Venom dripped from every word, and the look in Cat’s eyes when she caught Alex staring was pure poison.

“No!” Alex shook her head rapidly, uncertain about how a woman that tiny managed to be so intimidating. “Just, um, wasn’t sure if you’d want to be in the room for this. It won’t be pretty.”

“I’ll be in the lobby. I need to release a report about the newest round of attacks.”

“Right.”

As soon as she left, Alex turned back to her patient. “I’m going to give you some medicine for the pain, okay?”

“Nothing too strong.”

“You do realize we’ll be doing surgery, right?”

“I said nothing too strong.” For someone short on breath, she managed to emphasize each word with an impressive level of finality.

Apparently opposites weren’t the only things to attract, Alex mused. Still, patients had the right to opt out of treatment, so she set up an IV with a milder painkiller and none of the sedatives she would normally administer. “You’re going to have to hold still while I work. If you’re not, you’ll become a danger to your own well-being, and I will have to give you some sort of sedative. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded, holding herself stiff as Alex leaned over, moving the bright light to where she needed it before removing the bloody gauze. The wound wasn’t nearly as deep as Alex had feared, and it at least looked like Cat had treated it quickly, managing to keep the patient from suffering too much blood loss.

Even with the woman’s weakened state, she could hear the table creaking as her grip tightened around the edges. But not once did she move while Alex worked.

Luckily the bright green chip was easy enough to locate and remove, and Alex watched as the woman’s grip eased ever so slightly, her pulse slowing as well to something closer to the normal Kryptonian rate.

“I’m going to irrigate the wound now, since it’s not immediately closing on its own,” Alex explained, dropping the small piece of kryptonite into a bowl and pushing it as far away from her patient as the room allowed for.

One dented table and nine stitches later, Alex rewrapped the cleaned wound that did appear to be healing—slowly, thanks to the prolonged, internal kryptonite exposure, but healing nonetheless. “I’m going to get Cat. Is that okay with you?” A nod. “And then I need to make a quick call, but I’ll get you set up under sun lamps in just a few minutes.”

After another thorough wash of her hands, Alex opened the door to the makeshift waiting room where she found Cat pacing back and forth, tapping relentlessly away on her phone, her brow furrowed and her posture tense.

“Cat?”

She nearly jumped in her hurry to spin around to face Alex. “How is she?”

“She’s doing better. A small piece of kryptonite was embedded beneath her skin, but I removed it, cleaned the wound, and stitched her back up. It seems like it missed any major organs. There’s some internal damage that I would have treated were she not Kryptonian, but as it stands, her cells should regenerate quite rapidly once we get her under the sun lamps and give her a few days to heal.”

“She’s awake?”

“Yes. She asked not to be given any sort of sedatives.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Cat’s mouth. “That sounds right. I can see her now?”

Alex suspected that the question only had one correct answer. “Yeah, she’s right in there. Just be careful, and avoid touching anything in that general area. We don’t want to introduce any germs or foreign bacteria into the open wound.”

“Obviously,” Cat scoffed with a roll of her eyes.

Alex couldn’t quite help the chuckle as she pulled out her phone to send a quick text to Kara and J’onn: “Need sunlamps from the house ASAP. Can one of you bring them over? Text when here.” Pocketing her phone, she headed back into the room to go over aftercare and any follow up appointments she’d suggest if things didn’t seem to be healing properly.

Just as she was finishing her explanation, a small knock sounded on the door, followed by Kara calling out: “Got the sun lamps, Alex!”

Alex watched as her patient, who had been content enough to lie still through the duration of Alex’s explanation, suddenly gasped, her eyes flying open and her head lifting off the table.

“Uh, sorry, let me just go grab them, and we can get you set up next door in one of the smaller rooms, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, Alex carefully nudged open the door, blocking Kara’s view in case she wasn’t included in Cat’s list of approved visitors. She really had no desire to break one of the only rules she’d been given in exchange for the apartment and job.

“Here, they’re kinda heavy.”

Alex took one, grumbling at the unwieldy size. “Hold on, I’m gonna have to take them one at a time. Be right back.”

The moment she turned her back, she heard a loud crash then a quiet, whispered, “Aunt Astra?”

Alex was perversely satisfied when she noticed that Cat looked as stunned as she did.

“Little One.”

“You…you’re here? But you died. You died on Krypton.”

“Kara,” Alex cut in. “I—I’m not entirely sure what’s happening, but we really need to get the patient—”

“Astra.”

“Right, um, Astra needs to be put under the sun lamps. She was exposed to kryptonite, which is slowing her healing.”

Kara swallowed heavily before picking up the two sun lamps she had dropped and rushing them into one of the smaller rooms. She’d gotten both set up before Alex made it in with the third.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asked, her voice a low murmur.

“Not now. Just—just make her better, okay?”

Alex squeezed Kara’s hand and nodded. “I will.”

After checking the stitches, Alex rolled Astra back to the room, getting her set up under the lamps before turning them on to full blast. Before Cat could reach out to grab Astra’s hand, Alex pulled her back. “Not while the lamps are on. You can sit around the edges of the room, but it’s not safe for you to be exposed at close range to that much solar power.”

“Fine,” Cat huffed.

But then Kara was turning on Cat, glaring at her in a way that Alex had only seen once or twice. “Did you know who she was? Did you know who I was to her and keep her from me?”

An eyebrow arched in the face of Kara’s anger. “Excuse me?”

“Kara.” Alex’s voice was plaintive as she reached out a hand to rest on Kara’s shoulder. “I doubt it was—”

“No, I want to know. Because I’ve spent half my life thinking Kal-El and I were the only ones left, and he… I have been alone here, okay? If you knew—”

“She didn’t.”

Three heads turned in unison to look at Astra.

Despite wanting Kara to get some kind of closure, Alex decided she needed to take responsibility for Astra-as-patient instead of Astra-as-Kara’s-family first. “You should be resting.”

“I didn’t know you were Kryptonian, Kara,” Cat explained, taking over before Astra could object to Alex’s orders. “I had my suspicions, of course, what with the flying and the strength and the appearance, but despite the amount of time we’ve spent together, you’ve been rather unwilling to speak about anything before your years on Earth.”

Alex watched as Kara’s shoulders lost some of the tension they’d been holding. “It’s not safe—the more people who know… People get hurt when they know the truth.”

Cat let out an incredulous bark of laughter. “Because I’m so safe now?”

“That’s the point! You’ve already been kidnapped and held for months! They came after you more than once. Why should I put an even bigger target on your back by tying you to Superman’s cousin.”

“You’re related to Superman?” Cat’s question was directed to Kara, but her gaze was trained solely on Astra.

“Cousin on my father’s side.”

“And Astra is…?”

“My mother’s twin.” Before Cat could ask another question, Kara cut in. “And how exactly do you know Astra?”

“Maybe this should wait until Astra’s feeling better,” Alex interjected, but Kara seemed in no mood to listen or wait.

“I am feeling better. These sun lamps and distance from that wretched kryptonite, as you call it, have allowed my body to begin healing properly.”

“That’s great to hear. I’ll still want to check things over before you leave, but it sounds like you haven’t blown out your powers or anything else that could compound the damage.” Astra nodded in understanding.

“Do you remember when I disappeared?” Cat asked, her tone brisk and surprisingly businesslike for discussing her own months-long abduction.

“Uh, yeah. I think the whole world does.”

_Cat blinked, the whole world blurry and dark. It took a few long moments for her to register that rough, canvas fabric was covering her head as some sort of vehicle trundled around. With the bumps she could feel them hitting, she was sure they weren’t in a plane or on a boat, so at least they probably weren’t too far yet. She could taste the metallic tang of blood, and her whole body felt battered and bruised, cool air hitting her skin through what must be rips in her dress. She supposed the Ferragamo pumps were probably a lost cause as well._

_Trying to stay still and silent, Cat listened, waiting for any chatter or indication of where she might be going. She thought she heard a muffled voice, but it was over too soon to be sure. As they hit a bump, Cat seized an opportunity to move without giving away that she was awake. The side of her body hit something solid, sending pain radiating up her arm from what she hoped was only a bad bruise and not anything broken. No one made any moves to right her, so Cat tested it, letting a foot kick out, then another. Still nothing. She tried her arms, but they were cuffed behind her back, and once more pain burned through her left arm when she struggled against the restraints. The bag around her head seemed loose enough that maybe…_

_A wave of nausea crashed over her as she tipped her head forward, trying to shake off the bag. As she bit back the bile she could feel rising in her throat, she tried to focus on what it told her rather than how unpleasant the whole ordeal was. Head injury. Not bad enough to leave her unconscious for too long, but definitely somewhat severe. Still, she managed to pull her head free. She looked around. Back of a van. The only window was papered over, so really, it seemed a bit unnecessary to have covered her head for this. No weapons in sight._

_She looked down at her own body. A gash ran across her thigh, but otherwise it looked like scrapes and bruises. She tested various movements, grateful to find that only the left arm was giving her trouble. She tried to think back and compare the pain to that time in fourth grade when she’d broken her wrist falling out of the oak tree in the schoolyard that Tommy McCarthy had insisted she’d never be able to climb. Well, she proved him wrong, even if coming back down in a hurry before the teachers could find her proved slightly more difficult._

_A sharp turn nearly topped her off the bench, and suddenly the surface of the road felt different. Gravel maybe, rather than anything paved._

_Not too much later, she could feel them moving down some sort of steep incline before the vehicle jerked to a stop. One door, then another. Finally the back doors swung open. She glared at the man leering over at her, his gaze flitting between her face and the bag on the floor._

_“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”_

_Cat shot him a glare that would have all of her employees ducking for cover, but he just laughed as he pulled himself up into the back._

_“Unfortunately for you, it’s going back on.”_

_Then the world was dark again, and she felt herself being manhandled as she was uncuffed from the wall and dragged forward and nearly thrown down from the back of the van. She tried to track the directions as they moved. Some kind of elevator. Straight. Right. Walked for a while. Left. Shorter distance. Some beep—scanner, perhaps? Several more yards, and then there was a rough shove between her shoulder blades as she stumbled forward. The cuffs came off at least, followed by the mask. But then the cell door clanged shut._

_“Where am I?” Cat yelled at the retreating forms. “People will be looking for me!”_

_Nothing but silence met her. After a few long minutes, she turned around, finally taking in her surroundings. An empty cell sat to her left. A wall of dark cement behind her. To her right, though, well, there was something new. A woman stood, staring at her. A bright white streak ran through her hair, and glowing green shackles circled her wrists and ankles. Her skin looked slightly sallow, but she held herself with the kind of bearing that spoke of military precision._

_“Do you know where we are?” Cat demanded of her._

_“Welcome to Cadmus.”_

“Wait. Were you really at Cadmus?” Kara interjected. “I thought you said the government had kidnapped you?”

A bitter laugh answered her question. “Those dividing lines collapsed ages ago.”

“Right.” Because of course the government would have a hand in anti-alien terrorism even before the official raids began. “But how did you get out?”

Cat gestured at Astra. “I have your aunt to thank for that. She managed to organize a coordinated attack with some of the other aliens she’d been captured with.”

Kara rubbed at her face, trying to follow all the details. “Astra, I…how are you here? How did you survive? Does that mean…?” She tried to tamp down on the hope surging in her chest; she knew how dangerous it could be. “Did Krypton…?”

“I was not on Krypton when it exploded,” Astra explained, sounding significantly better than when she’d last spoken, even if her posture had turned more rigid.

“But we were not at war at the end.”

Astra swallowed, her head lowering slightly. “Do you remember the last time I saw you?”

“You came to visit just a few months before… I’d called you!” The details she’d worked so hard to repress over the years came flooding back. “On the spy beacon.” Alex lunged forward to steady Astra before realizing she was simply reaching for a small pocket on her all-black suit, pulling out a small device that made Kara bring a hand to her mouth. “After all this time?”

“When I saw Kal-El on the front of your newspapers, I let myself hope that perhaps…perhaps he was not the only child to escape. But my early years here…there were things to work through first.”

“But how did you get here? When did you get here?”

A deep, steadying breath. “I was on Fort Rozz during Krypton’s final months. An alien aboard the prison hacked into the computer system of a pod destined for Earth that had gotten stuck in the Phantom Zone and used it to pull us both out.”

Kara swallowed heavily. “That was—I was the one in the Phantom Zone.”

“I wondered…” Astra trailed off, blinking rapidly. “You look so young. Not the child I left behind, but certainly not what I’d expected.”

“Twenty-four years,” Kara whispered. Astra nodded grimly in response. “Why, um, when did you…? Fort Rozz, Astra?”

“Do you not remember the end of our last visit?”

“My mother…she wished to speak with you.”

“She wanted to do more than that.” A flicker of something dark flashed across Astra’s features before she schooled them into a more neutral expression. “I knew Krypton was dying. I tried to persuade the High Council to take action, but they would not listen. A group of us planned to take action and, in the process, Non killed a guard.”

“But why were you sentenced, instead of Non?”

“Make no mistake, Non was sentenced as well. An eternity in Fort Rozz for both of us.” Kara’s mouth fell open. To live a prisoner forever… It was hard to imagine her mother sentencing her own twin to such a cruel fate. “The High Council did not wish to see reason. We worked to create a program that would save our planet, save our society. They did not view it that way.”

“Because it was mind control, Astra.” Cat sighed in a way that suggested they’d had this conversation many times over.

“In retrospect, perhaps my methods were not ideal. But our planet was on the verge of ecological destruction, and something drastic needed to change if we were to have any hope of survival.”

“But my mother…she—she cared about justice. She cared about Krypton.” Astra stayed silent, and Kara felt one of Alex’s arms curl around her back. But Kara didn’t want comfort; she wanted answers. “I assume it was other Fort Rozz aliens who helped you escape?”

“Mainly. Others I had met during my travels.”

“What? Trying to start mind control here on Earth?”

“Kara,” Alex murmured.

Astra’s voice was almost deadly in its precision when she answered. “Trying to survive in a country that wishes to see _us_ dead. You would do well not to forget that fact, Little One.”

Cat took that as her moment to cut in. “We’d gotten to know each other over weeks spent living side-by-side. She’d heard about me, of course.” Astra smiled over at her—something indulgent and so at odds with the fierce woman of mere moments earlier. “They weren’t too keen on humans, but, well, I don’t particularly care for most people either.” Alex couldn’t help but nod in agreement. “We struck a deal. I’d be included in the escape in exchange for finding housing and employment for aliens. It’s why I already had so much property in National City when I began operating the larger-scale shelter program.”

“Okay…”

“I came to respect Cat, even as I grew ever more resentful of your human government.”

“She saved my life and took Carter to safety for me on that Christmas Eve when I was attacked again.”

Alex cursed under her breath, remembering all the reports that had circulated about aliens kidnapping Cat’s family—reports Cat herself had vehemently denied, only to be called delusional and unfit for leadership.

“I’d like to talk to Astra alone…if that’s okay.”

Cat and Alex nodded, following one another out the door.

“Coffee?” Alex offered.

“Please.”

Alex led Cat upstairs to the apartment half of the house, winding down the hallway to the small kitchen. The mindless work was a nice distraction, giving her something else to look at as she cleared her throat and asked: “Are you sure about Astra?”

“Do I look like the kind of woman who would hand my son to just anyone?”

“I suppose not.”

“Definitely not. She…when they landed, I do believe there were plans to rebuild Myriad. They recognized patterns in the way that we’re treating the Earth to the way that Kryptonians treated their planet. Extracting too many natural resources. Burning through fossil fuels at an alarming rate. Releasing toxic gases into the environment.”

“But something changed?”

“She and Non disagreed on the acceptability of certain…methods.”

“Ah.”

“She began gathering supporters who might be willing to work with us, rather than against us. But then 2008 happened.”

“I take it we humans didn’t seem too great as allies after that, huh?”

“No. But Astra and those who had sided with her were not accepted back. That husband of hers”—Cat’s lip curled in distaste—“didn’t want anyone who had ever considered allying with humans around. Within a year, Cadmus had captured all of them.”

“Fuck.” Cat pursed her lips and nodded. “What about Non’s people?”

“They weren’t brought in while I was there, but Astra thinks one of her men gave them up.”

“What? A plea bargain kind of deal?”

Cat snorted, though anger flashed in her eyes. “You overestimate Cadmus’s civility. No, they preferred torture.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do it. But Astra hasn’t been able to locate Non or his followers since.”

“So either they’re deep in hiding or…Cadmus?”

“Or perhaps rounded up in one of the official raids. Who knows these days?”

As much as Alex loathed the idea of the raids, she had a hard time feeling bad about Non. From the little she’d heard of him, he didn’t exactly sound the type she’d want coming anywhere near Kara.

Once she’d gotten both of their coffees, Alex handed a mug to Cat, pointing out where sugar and milk were if she needed them.

“Did you know Astra had family here?”

“I didn’t lie to your sister, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Just asking.”

“Mm, I vaguely remember saying something like that before exposing a certain presidential candidate’s tax fraud on air many years ago.”

Alex couldn’t quite help the smile.

“I knew that your family had ties to research on Kryptonians, but Kara offered no confirmation. And Astra did mention the possibility of looking for any other survivors from Krypton who had made it to Earth, but it was never a topic she wished to dwell on.”

“You didn’t find that a little suspicious?”

“I won’t begrudge anyone their wish not to talk about family. Even family members they love.”

The look on Cat’s face told Alex not to dare push further on that topic, so she switched tracks instead, managing to take Cat by surprise when she asked: “And when did you two start dating?”

Cat coughed around a sip of hot coffee.

“Friends don’t hold hands with friends. And they definitely don’t make out with their friends.”

“It was barely a kiss,” Cat growled.

“Since when did you become so private? I’m fairly certain I saw you on the cover of Cosmo once talking about your sex life.”

“If you read the interview, I think you’d have seen that I was making suggestions for other people’s sex lives, actually.”

“Okay, but you weren’t exactly protesting when those photos leaked of Rob Lowe sneaking out of your penthouse.”

“Yes, well Rob Lowe isn’t an alien fugitive.”

Alex conceded the point with a dip of her head. “Fair enough. Still, Kara’s gonna be pissed if she feels like she’s being lied to right after she was all upset about the idea that she was being, well, lied to.”

“I didn’t think it was my place to say. I’m not sure how things were on Krypton—what would and would not be deemed acceptable.” Cat’s fingers danced around the rim of her mug, never quite stilling.

“Kara’s not homophobic if that’s what you’re worried about. Besides having me as a sister, growing up she used to have the _biggest_ crush on—” Alex froze, suddenly realizing what she was about to say. “Um. On, uh, Jennifer Aniston. Yeah. Her.”

Cat’s eyes narrowed, and Alex felt a fraction of the fear she imagined all of Cat’s interviewees would have felt once. “Okay.”

“Anyway. What happened to Astra today?”

Cat rubbed at her face, the cracks in the calm mask starting to show. “She’s been helping me to gather information about Cadmus for an exposé I’m working on. They had labs that”—Cat shuddered—“even for a citizenry that has grown all too complacent with raids and deportations, the cruelty I saw there…I want to believe it might be enough to shake people out of this stupor.”

“I take it she got caught?”

“Yes. She managed to make it back to the car, but we panicked when the cut wasn’t healing.”

“It’s good you got her in. She already looks a thousand times better. If she can spend the full day under the sun lamps, she should be all healed up. I’d recommend that she gets lots of sun over the next few days as well.”

“I’ll see to it, even if I have to strap her to my balcony chair to keep her there.”

Alex choked on her sip of coffee. Looking confused look until her gaze dropped to Alex’s cheeks, which were flushed a deep red with embarrassment, Cat rolled her eyes. “If I wish to start revealing all those secrets about my sex life you think I so readily spilled on the pages of Cosmo, I promise to give you fair warning.”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

Cat simply waved it away.

After a few quiet minutes, Alex couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “Do you think they’re okay?”

“They both have superpowers. I assume if it were going too poorly, we’d be able to hear it.”

“I guess.” Alex’s fingers drummed out a quick staccato beat along the tabletop.

“I imagine they have quite a bit to discuss.”

“Yeah…35 years is a lot to catch up on.” Not to mention everything that had happened in those years: the death of a planet, time in the Phantom Zone, life on Earth, adolescence, early adulthood, prison, Cadmus…

Eventually, Kara came upstairs. Her cheeks were streaked with dried tears, but she didn’t look upset in the way Alex had feared she might.

“Astra asked for you,” Kara told Cat, settling in beside Alex.

Once Cat was gone, Alex stood, pulling Kara into her arms and feeling the warmth of her breath puffing out in steady, even pulses. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I, uh, I don’t think I want to talk about it right now, if that’s okay?”

“Absolutely.”

Kara nodded, giving Alex a small smile.

“I need to go check on Astra, but I’ve got the rest of the day off. What do you say to a night of fatty foods and terrible television?”

“That sounds perfect.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some long-overdue family bonding and the introduction of a character I know many of you have been waiting for for 9 chapters now! Hope you enjoy!

“Again,” Astra barked, holding herself still as Kara circled her, body lithe and nearly weightless, taking full advantage of all the powers a yellow sun gave her without growing cocky because of them. She feigned right before swinging left and landing a glancing blow. Astra kicked off from the ground and curled around Kara, flipping her over and dropping her to the ground. “Now what should you never do once you have your opponent pinned?”

“Leave yourself open.” Kara tugged on Astra’s ankle when she wasn’t looking, sending her crashing, ass-first, back down to the floor. “You do know that I’ve trained before, right?”

“There is no such thing as too much training.”

“Tell that to J’onn’s floor.” Kara grimaced at the sight of the hairline cracks running along the concrete of the basement.

Astra sniffed, attempting to look dignified despite being sprawled on the ground. “Perhaps if you did not allow yourself to be pinned so frequently, there would be less damage.”

“Please. At least one of the bad ones is from you.”

“I suppose. You are better trained than I expected you to be.”

Kara shrugged. “J’onn taught me a lot, helped me learn how to control my powers, you know, use them without putting people at risk.” She sank down to the floor beside Astra, trailing a finger along the spindly, winding paths of one of the cracks. “The first few times I tried…a lot of people got hurt.”

“Oh, Kara.” Astra’s hand hovered in the air between them, but before she could pull it back, Kara grabbed it, squeezing it as tightly as she wanted without worrying about hurting her. “I am sorry that I could not be the family you needed when you first arrived.”

“The Danvers were wonderful—are wonderful, really. And they knew Kal, so it wasn’t like I was this big surprise who could shoot lasers out of my eyes.”

“Kal-El should have taken you in. He is your blood, and he does not respect his duties.”

Kara’s gaze fell to the floor. She’d gotten over it, for the most part. He was young, just starting his career, and no one in his life knew he was an alien; it would have been challenging, perhaps impossible, for him to give her the life the Danvers did. Still, she wished he would have been a more constant presence in her life growing up. No amount of research would ever equate to the experience of living as a Kryptonian under the Earth’s yellow sun.

“I think,” Astra began, before pausing to take a deep breath. “I think it was easier for us. I had been to planets whose atmospheres affected my abilities before. Not a yellow sun, no, but at least it did not come as a shock to know that my body was not wholly my own.”

“Oh. I didn’t think about that, but I guess you did a lot of travel.”

“Dozens of planets, across galaxies.” There was that faraway look in her eyes that always served to remind Kara of the distance that had sprung up between them over their years apart. “And I did not need to moderate my strength as much with most of my fellow…inmates.”

“Yeah… Are, um, the ones who had sided with you—are they okay?”

“A few did not make it out of Cadmus. Some have been caught since making it back.”

“If they need housing, I know Cat’s trying to open shelters in other cities. They’re not finalized yet, but she’s had me looking at some potential locations”

A smile pulled up the corners of Astra’s mouth, the tension in her back and shoulders finally loosening. “Believe it or not, I do know a little something about Cat’s plans.”

“Oh!” Kara could feel her cheeks warming. “Right. Yeah, of course.”

“You are not uncomfortable with the idea of us together, are you?”

“No!” Kara pulled her hand back to rub at her face. “No, I swear, I’m not. I’m really, really happy for both of you. You seem…happy together. Lighter.”

“Okay.”

“It was just a surprise, that’s all. I knew Cat, or knew of her, for such a long time, and it’s hard to suddenly think about her life just”—Kara sent her hands crashing into one another—“suddenly merging with you, my family. My family that I didn’t even know to hope for.”

Astra nodded slowly. “I understand that feeling.” She turned to face Kara head-on. “I want you to know that I am here for you now. I know it cannot make up for my years of absence, but I do not take this second chance at family lightly.”

“I can tell. And I—I do want that. Family. But I also want you to get to know the rest of my family too. Alex and J’onn and Eliza when she travels down to visit.”

“I would like that. Perhaps you could join us for dinner one night. Cat speaks so highly of you and your family; I do not think she would mind my inviting you into her home.”

“That’d be really nice. And obviously you’re welcome here. J’onn’s the best cook out of the three of us, though I can make a mean pie, and Alex isn’t _too_ bad if you can manage to keep her focused on the stove long enough to keep things from burning.”

“I look forward to it.”

\---

Alex should have known better than to let the monotony of a quiet Tuesday lull her into a sort of sleepy stillness. Sure, there were whole days that passed by with little more than a few visitors or easily handled issues like check-ups and scrapes on children dragged in by overly concerned new parents. Today, however, was not to be one of those days.

As Alex was rolling out her neck from long hours spent slouched in front of a computer, the doorbell rang. Then again. And again. And again and again until she was standing in front of it and yanking it open.

“You need to help her!” A small woman pushed her way in, a lanky woman clutched in her arms, her pale skin bloody and purpling with rapidly developing bruises.

“What happened?”

“Darla’s a Roltikkon. Passes pretty well as human, but a DEO agent got her. Sting operation.” The woman’s voice was tight, but surprisingly controlled for how distraught she looked. “She thought it was a date, but obviously…” She gestured with her chin at the body still clutched in her arms.

Alex called back for help before turning back to the patient. “Are you a relative?”

“Uh, no. I’m just—just a friend.”

“Human?”

She nodded.

“Alright, we’ll take it from here.” Alex motioned over her shoulder to Bex, who stood with Brian in the corner with one of the rolling beds ready. Alex carefully moved the wounded woman onto the table, whispering a string of orders to Bex, who would take Darla back to Amak for an initial round of assessments.

“But wait, I want to make sure she’s okay. Can’t I wait here?”

“Look.” Alex glanced up at the woman standing in front of her, leather jacket soaked in blood, her hands clenching and unclenching into fists. “I’m glad you brought her here, but we try to keep it a space where aliens can feel safe while receiving treatment. That means no unvetted humans.”

“Can you…could you at least call me when she wakes up? Tell me she’s okay? I can stay in the area.”

“Don’t I know you?” Brian, who’d been helping run the desk during off hours so that Alex could rest, narrowed his eyes. “Yeah! 2008. You and your Science Division buddies arrested me for no reason. Worst night of my life.”

Alex rounded on the woman, fury flashing in her eyes. “Get. Out.”

“Hey, no, it’s not like—”

Alex’s hands fisted in the front of her leather jacket as she pushed her towards the door. “Get the hell out of my clinic. And don’t let me _ever_ see you coming back this way again.”

“I’m not a cop!” The yell was cut off as Alex shoved her back outside and slammed the door, engaging the deadbolt behind her. She pulled out her phone, quickly dialing Kara’s number.

“Hey! Day still quiet?”

“No.”

“Oh, do you—”

“I don’t have time to talk. Look, some cop just came here with an alien all bloodied up. Claims it was DEO, but I don’t trust it. I’m gonna check her for wires or cameras, then fix her up.”

“Oh no. What can I do?”

“I need you to trail her. She’s short, maybe 5’3”? 5’4”? Dark brown hair. Brown eyes. Tight jeans. Leather jacket covered in blood. See where she goes. If it looks like she’s about to bring a team to our location…”

“Astra and I can stop it, don’t worry.”

“Just be safe.”

“Always.”

With a deep breath, Alex steeled her nerves and strode back into the room. Amak had already stripped Darla of her bloody clothes and washed off much of the excess dirt and blood before pulling a hospital gown on over her.

Alex turned to Bex, who was looking a little queasy with the amount of blood. “Check her clothes for bugs, cameras, anything like that.”

“Will do.” They nearly bolted out of the room.

Amak cleared her throat. “Patient has been coming in and out of consciousness. Major trauma to the head. Contusions and cuts, some rather deep, all along the torso. Potential broken arm that may need to be set.”

“Got it.”

And for the next couple of hours, Alex let herself sink into the work alongside Amak, pushed the NCPD and the DEO from her mind enough to focus on Darla, giving her all to a woman who needed her help. By the time they were done, Darla had a brand new white cast wrapped around her wrist and forearm, a few sets of stitches, and a note on her chart to wake her every few hours since she’d suffered a pretty bad concussion.

By the time Alex had cleaned up and heard from Amak that she’d gotten Darla settled in one of the overnight rooms, it had been several hours. Checking her phone, she found a string of text messages from Kara:

7:03pm: A and I on alert.

7:18pm: Found cop. She’s driving.

7:27pm: Cop is showering alone in an apartment. Will listen for calls or visitors.

7:59pm: Someone at her door.

7:59pm: False alarm. Chinese delivery. Wanna grab Chinese for dinner when you’re done? I can pick up extra potstickers.

8:06pm: Cop is crying into lo mein and watching the news.

8:32pm: Cop threw out most of her lo mein. You were right: she must be evil.

8:50pm: Cop is drinking scotch now.

9:30pm: Cop is asleep on couch.

9:51pm: Still asleep. A wants to go turn off her lights and TV bc she’s wasting electricity and killing the planet. For now I’m holding her back, but idk how much longer I can.

Chuckling at the image of the altogether intimidating intergalactic prisoner/fugitive ecoterrorist casually floating into an apartment just to unplug appliances not in use, Alex called Kara.

“Hey!” Kara’s voice crackled over the line, the sound of wind rustling through in the background.

“Hey, just finished things up over here.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, she’s gonna be alright. For now she’s asleep.”

“Good! So, uh, I’m still pretty hungry…if you wanted potstickers.”

Alex bit back a smile. “Yeah, sounds like our little cop friend didn’t go running to her boss yet. Maybe you could check in tomorrow morning?”

“For sure. It looks like she’s pretty much passed out for the night, so we should be good.”

“Cool. Can you get me that extra spicy soup I like?”

Alex could hear Kara huffing and grumbling over the line. “You only like it ’cause I don’t.”

“Adaptation is a fine method for selecting favorites.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be over in half an hour.”

As it turned out, it only took Kara 20 minutes to make it there—“I may have already put in the order…”—and soon enough they were cuddled on Alex’s couch with some old rerun playing that didn’t require much attention. After the first episode, Alex’s phone timer went off with a reminder to go check on Darla.

After making Kara promise not to start anything new without her, Alex traipsed downstairs and grabbed Darla’s chart, before heading into her room with a soft knock. “Hey,” she said, noticing that Darla was awake and looking somewhat panicked.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in an overnight room at an emergency medical clinic for aliens,” Alex explained as she began her examination, checking Darla’s responses and tracking her eye movement. “Do you remember what happened to you earlier today?”

“Fuckin’ asshole.”

Alex’s mind flashed back to the bloody cop. “Yeah, but don’t worry, we’ll make sure she doesn’t get to you.”

“What?”

“The cop.”

Darla shook her head before grimacing, one hand coming up to hold her forehead. “DEO.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ve heard DEO has been partnering up with the Science Division.” Alex stepped forward as Darla grew more and more agitated. “Are you in pain? I can give you a bit more pain medicine, maybe something to help you sleep for the next couple of hours before I need to check in on you again.”

“No!”

Alex held her hands up and stepped backwards. “I just want you to be comfortable, that’s all.”

“Need to talk…Maggie. She was there. I called her.” Alex watched as Darla seemed to shake off the haze of the painkillers, slowly returning to lucidity.

“Sure. Do you have a phone with your clothes?”

“Destroyed.”

“Right. Well, we’ve still got a landline in here if you know the number.”

Darla motioned for the phone, and Alex stepped back to give her a bit of privacy, though she could still make out Darla’s half of the conversation.

“Hey.”

A little snort. “Been better, Mags.”

“No, I’m okay thanks to you. Don’t remember much, but I know that.”

“Little hazy, but I think I’m all patched up.”

“Wait, what?”

“No, c’mon, you can’t not tell me. I almost died. You have to tell me.”

Alex tried to distract herself with Darla’s chart, though she couldn’t help but notice the way Darla’s features seemed to harden, then a glare being directed her way.

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, fuck that.”

Darla slammed the phone back down on the receiver—and there were some very solid points in favor of regaining fine motor control and muscle use. “The woman who brought me. What happened to her?”

“A human brought you.” Darla nodded. “Our policy is only to allow pre-vetted individuals into this facility, which is reserved for aliens in need of medical attention.”

“That policy also include a line about threatening everyone else?”

Not wanting to upset Darla when she should be resting, Alex kept her voice soft and even. “I don’t know how well you know her, but one of our staff members recognized the woman who brought you from the NCPD.”

Darla snorted, but it held no mirth, her eyes flinty and her mouth pulled tight. “ _I_ don’t know her? Really?”

“I…she said she was a friend.”

“Friend. Former roommate. Ex-girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

“Also, not a cop.”

“Darla, I acted in a way that would keep you and all the other patients here safe.”

“You didn’t listen!”

Alex fought to keep her tone measured in the face of Darla’s anger. “I can’t afford to—not when hesitating can put lives at risk.”

“Whatever. Tomorrow Maggie’s gonna come visit me, take me home if I’m ready.”

Alex swallowed, thinking back to Kara’s messages about the woman—Maggie—crying into her food, falling asleep alone on the couch, watching the news, probably listening to horrible reports about all the things that could have happened to her friend… Fuck. Still, she’d done what was right in the moment. There was no use feeling guilty now. She’d simply act differently based on the new information she had moving forward. It was as easy as that.

“Okay. I’ll be back to check on you again around 2.”

“Fine.” Once Alex was halfway out the door, Darla called after her: “She hasn’t been a cop for 5 years, and she spent her last few months there stealing as much information as she could from them to try to keep people like me safe.”

Alex forced herself to nod and keep walking. Maybe tomorrow she’d have a chance to make it right.

\---

As it turned out, her second impression on Maggie was no better, as she swung open the front door straight into her.

“Fuck!” Maggie rubbed at the angry-looking red mark blooming along the side of her cheek.

“Shit. I didn’t know—I didn’t hear a knock.”

“I was waiting for Darla to tell me it was okay to cross the threshold,” Maggie grumbled.

“Come in.” Maggie trudged in behind Alex, still rubbing at her cheek. “Do you, uh, want an ice pack?”

“Wouldn’t want to impose.”

Alex sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I wasn’t trying to be an asshole yesterday. We have a policy about non-aliens here that was put in place for a reason. And then Brian—”

“No, he was right. He did know me from NCPD. I worked there for about two years, which I’d have told you if you’d given me the chance to explain.”

“I reacted, okay? I did what I needed to do to keep my patients safe. Now that I have a bit more information and know you aren’t an active threat, I’m more than happy to apologize for leaving you in the dark about Darla, but I won’t apologize for my actions. I’d do the same thing again in a heartbeat.”

“I get it. I’d have done the same thing too.”

“What?”

Maggie shrugged. “Vulnerable populations—you do what you have to do. Better to issue apologies later than to let someone get killed because you were too trusting.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, exactly.”

“I was pissed yesterday, but not at you. Or, well, okay fine, with you a little, but more with the whole situation.”

Alex nodded as she led Maggie back towards Darla’s room. “She’s doing a lot better today. Ideally, I’d keep her one more night, but she seems pretty anxious about getting out of here, and so long as she’ll have someone there for her, I’m willing to release her without too much hesitation.”

“I’ll stay with her for the next few days or weeks—whatever it takes.”

Alex couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto her face at that. “Well, if Darla okays it, I’ll have you come in for her care instructions. It’ll be good if you know what to look for—how to spot signs of internal bleeding, that sort of thing.”

A rather surly Darla did more than agree to have Maggie come in, angrily insisting that she be let in the door that instant. Alex tried to keep her eyes on the chart, instead of on Maggie and Darla’s interlaced fingers and the way Maggie fussed over every scrape and cut and bruise marring Darla’s skin. At least she’d be leaving with someone who clearly cared and would make sure she was rushed back in if her condition were to deteriorate at any point.

On the way out, Maggie stopped and shook Alex’s hand, holding her gaze as she thanked her for everything she did, not just for Darla but for the whole community. “I, uh, also work with a lot of the aliens who pass through National City. Is there any chance you could run that background check on me or whatever so that I can bring folks in if they ever need urgent medical care?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Maggie handed over a card with her number and, with one last glance back at Alex, made her way out the door with Darla.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience! There's been a lot going on this summer - fostering another dog, some health emergencies, and such - but I'm glad to finally be getting back to this fic (and I'll be responding to your lovely comments over the next couple of days!)  
> Hope you enjoy :)

“No! My eyes!” Kara cried out, nearly plowing into the doorway in her hurry to get away from the sight of Cat getting handsy with Astra in the kitchen.

Alex barely hid a snicker behind the back of her hand. “Whatever could be the matter?”

“My _aunt_! She—she helped raise me, Alex! And she is in there”—she lowered her voice—“making out with—”

“Your long-time crush?” Alex supplied, squawking loudly as Kara launched herself at Alex, tackling her to the ground and covering her mouth until Alex licked across the inside of her palm.

“Shut up!”

Just then, Astra emerged from the kitchen, narrowing her eyes at the sight of their dinner guests sprawled out across the living room floor. “Am I interrupting?”

“Nope, just trying to help Kara parse through her feelings.” Alex grinned broadly at Kara’s huff of annoyance.

“Can we help with anything?” Kara offered, trying to be polite and not think about anything else.

“We should be set now,” came Cat’s reply as she strode into the living room, stopping beside Astra and leaning ever so slightly against her.

“Your, um, your hair is a little…” Alex made a vague motion around her head, trying to cue Cat in to the fact that her hair looked distinctly like someone had just had a hand tangled in it.

“Let me.” Astra carefully detangled a handful of the curls. “Beautiful.” The glowing endorsement earned her a quick kiss from Cat, and Kara fought the urge to look away. It didn’t have to be weird that her aunt was dating and kissing her boss. And, okay, fine, also her crush. Clearly her _former_ crush, she rushed to amend in her thoughts.

“Wine?” Cat held up a bottle of red, and slowly but surely the weirdness from earlier dissipated so that, by the time J’onn arrived and they’d all sat down to their first course, everyone was chatting easily.

Over dinner Cat filled everyone in on the progress of the shelters in Opal City and Metropolis, both of which were set to open by the end of the month thanks to a bit of nighttime construction assistance by Astra and Kara’s tireless efforts to stay on top of all the bureaucratic nonsense related to permits and contracts and little legal loopholes that could screw them over. J’onn, for his part, had been going undercover and helping to slip misleading information to DEO agents that had them scouting out other lots under construction in all the cities Cat was working in. Come spring, they’d find that they had wasted millions in resources and manpower to spy on the construction of a private day school, a youth sports center, a gallery that Kara was fairly certain wouldn’t last three months, and a grocery superstore, but by then the shelters would have had plenty of time to quietly open their doors.

After their dinner dishes had been cleared away with a bit of superspeed—“It’s like first class seating,” Cat had mused, “you don’t realize you need it until you’ve enjoyed it, but now I could never think of going back”—they brought out the pie Kara, Alex, and J’onn had brought, along with a platter of sugar cookies that Carter had decorated to look like different planets before leaving for a weekend with his father. Kara couldn’t help but notice the handful of very accurately frosted planet-cookies and suspected Astra might have had a hand in those ones.

Once everyone was seated again, Astra reached out and grabbed one that Carter had decorated with two broad rings of frosting and sprinkles, a fond smile pulling up the corners of her mouth, then turned to Alex. “How are things going at the clinic?”

“Pretty well. I’ve seen a few cases of a nasty stomach bug that’s had patients just”—Alex caught sight of Cat lowering her cookie back down to her plate and cleared her throat—“er, um, yeah, they’ve recovered. One pretty bad attack by a DEO agent sent a brand new patient my way.”

“Oh?” Suddenly all of Cat’s attention was focused on Alex, and not for the first time, she wondered how any of Cat’s talk show guests had survived trying to lie to her during campaign season. “Were they from the shelter?”

“No, actually. She’d heard about it through word of mouth, which I’m hoping is a good thing, so long as it’s just aliens and allies who are hearing about us that way.”

Astra nodded, a grim expression on her face.

“That reminds me. The human who brought her in was wondering if we might be able to clear her to come and go freely in the future, said she thought she might have more patients to bring in.”

“Who is she?” Cat asked.

“Well, she’s actually the woman I had Kara and Astra follow…”

Astra bristled at the reminder, and Cat’s posture stiffed, as if bracing for an imminent fight.

“The Science Division cop?” Astra demanded.

“Er, yeah. Well, not really. She used to be with the NCPD, but I found out from the patient she brought in that she quit several years ago. Apparently she stole a lot of information before she left and has been trying to help vulnerable populations ever since.”

Cat looked unconvinced, even though Kara nodded along with Alex’s assessment. “Who is she? I might not have the same resources I once did, but I can still manage a fairly thorough background check.”

“Maggie. Maggie Sawyer.”

Almost immediately, Astra relaxed. “Oh, the forger.”

“Why’d you make us spend the whole night following her around if you already knew her?” Kara asked, her brow furrowing.

“I have only heard of her.” Astra shrugged her shoulders, breaking off a small piece of her cookie. “She is something of a…what do you call it?” She turned to Cat and murmured quietly in her ear.

“Ah, an urban legend?”

Astra nodded and squeezed Cat’s hand with hers. “Yes. Within alien circles, at least. She makes papers—birth certificates, social security cards, drivers licenses, whatever is required, free of charge.”

Kara’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Free?” There had been plenty of stories circulating on CatCo’s front page about the extortionists who would promise decent papers for exorbitant fees, only to provide documents that wouldn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny, or, worse still, would hand over their clients to the DEO when they came to collect.

“For her alien clients. She helps them find employment and housing with the new documents.”

“I guess it makes sense that she’d want ties to the clinic,” Alex said. “I’d still like to run a background check first, just to be sure.”

Cat nodded. “I’ll reach out to one of my more trustworthy sources. It shouldn’t take more than a week or two unless something urgent comes up.”

“Thanks.”

Soon enough, the conversation eased back into lighter topics as Kara plucked a miniature Krypton out of the cookie pile. “Teaching Carter about all the planets, are you?” she asked Astra.

“Of course. He is incredibly curious.”

“You should see his bedroom ceiling,” Cat laughed, looking lighter than she had all night. “Some children have a few constellations. He has a few dozen galaxies.”

Astra looked over at Kara. “He reminds me of you, Little One. The same never-ending questions, particularly when it is meant to be bedtime.” Alex reached over and squeezed Kara’s hand under the table. “He loves art the way you did too. Do you still…” she trailed off, her gaze dropping to her lap.

“I do. I, uh, I actually paint a lot, mainly what I remember of Krypton. Maybe you could come over one day to see them?”

“I would be honored.”

Alex nudged her shoulder against Kara’s. “She won’t say anything, but she’s really fucking good too.”

“I believe it. She was very talented as a child. Were she not set to become the youngest member of the Science Guild, she might have gone on to be a sculptor.”

Kara ducked her head at the praise. “So, uh, Carter likes to draw?”

“He’s just learning, but he does like drawing. Watercolors too.” Cat gestured behind her towards the kitchen. “A few of his paintings are hanging on the fridge if you want to see. They cut some of the art options at his school, so I’ve actually been looking to get him lessons. If you have any suggestions, Kara…”

“Would Carter feel comfortable taking them in a big group? I know sometimes he’s a little shy.”

“I think private lessons, at least while he’s still learning the basics,” Cat said.

“I mean, I’d be more than happy to come over and work with him.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Kara shrugged. “I’ve been trying to devote more time to art these days. Helps me get out of my head after everything going on out there. I wouldn’t mind getting to share that with someone else.”

“Why don’t you think about it over the weekend? I wouldn’t want you to give up your free time just because you felt obligated.” Before Kara could insist that she had already thought about it, Cat added, “And I’ll make sure Carter is still interested.”

The rest of dessert passed by in easy conversation, and by the time they were clearing the table, everyone was pleasantly stuffed and a little sleepy.

While Alex grabbed their coats and bags and J’onn waited at the door, Kara reached out for Astra, pulling her into a tight hug—no fear of breaking bones necessary. “Thank you. With everything…it’s nice being here with you, feeling safe with our families.”

Kara swore she saw the glimmer of a tear in Astra’s eye before it was blinked away and she was being pulled into an equally tight hug in return. “I never thought I could hope for this. But I am happy to have found it.”

\---

After a few quiet days at the clinic, Alex got a phone call from Cat confirming that her investigator had done a thorough background check on Maggie Sawyer and that what she said was true. Apparently NCPD still hadn’t been able to figure out how much information she stole, but there were ongoing case files that suggested it was a not insignificant amount. She’d grown up in some small town in Nebraska that neither Cat nor Alex had ever heard of, moved in with an aunt during high school, then left the Midwest for college and never turned back. There had been a short stint in Gotham after she left the NCPD, presumably to be far, far away from National City while she was public enemy number one in the department, but she’d eventually migrated back to National City once it emerged as the epicenter of the government’s war on aliens. Even the investigator hadn’t figured out how she’d come into so much money in Gotham, though there was a small note about the Bat family with a question mark in the file, but it was clear that she had become independently wealthy enough to live comfortably without charging the vast majority of her clients for her services.

Once Alex was off the phone with Cat, she pulled out the business card Maggie had handed her and dialed the number, drumming her fingers against her desk as she waited for the woman to answer.

“Hello?”

“Maggie? This is Alex.”

“Ah, the doctor. I was starting to wonder if I’d hear from you again.” There was a slight chuckle to her voice that put Alex at ease.

“I told you I’d need to clear things first.”

“Yes, yes, I imagine a very thorough investigation into my past was required.”

Alex’s lips twitched. “Maybe.”

“Find anything you like, Dr. Danvers?”

“I’m calling you back, aren’t I?” Alex shook her head; flirting was the last thing she should be doing.

“That you are.”

“Though actually, I’d rather not talk on the phone. Would you mind coming down to my office at some point in the next few days?”

“I’m free until 3 today. Does that work?”

Glancing down at her calendar, Alex scanned the pages. There was one patient due to come in for a check up to see if her infection had cleared up, but Amak would be able to handle that one easily, and it wasn’t as if Alex would be out of commission if an urgent case came in that required all hands on deck. “Yeah, that works for me.”

“Awesome, I’ll come by in about an hour.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

Alex quickly made a note in the shared staff calendar so that everyone would know she was busy but not unavailable for emergencies, then she jogged upstairs to get ready. Not that she needed to impress Maggie for any reason. It was just, well, she was cute. And she had a gorgeous smile. And a great ass. So maybe Alex wanted her shower to be a little more recent than the night before. And maybe she wanted to wear her nice jeans that made her own ass look a little better. No one was there to judge her for wanting to look a little less harried doctor and a little more hot lesbian looking for some affirmation from a fellow hot lesbian. Or not-straight lady. She’d have to check on that.

Once Alex was dressed and her hair dried, she headed back downstairs, determined to get a few patient files in order before Maggie arrived. She loved working with the alien community and learning from her colleagues about all sorts of medical techniques they didn’t yet have on Earth, but the paperwork… God, she could die happy if she never had to look at another form demanding her attention.

Around her third file folder, the bell on the door jingled as it opened, and Maggie walked in looking as good as ever in a fitted black leather jacket.

“Hey!” She gave a little nod of her head in greeting, and Alex spotted the two coffee cups in her hand.

“Get an extra in case I spilled another one on you today?” Alex teased.

“Nah, thought I’d bring one over to you. I wasn’t sure how you take your coffee, so it’s just black, but I have a couple sugar packets in my pocket if you need them.”

“Thanks.” Alex reached out and took the cup, then two of the offered sugar packets, before leading Maggie down one of the hallways away from the main patient rooms to her office. Once she got in, she placed her cup on the corner of the desk and quickly cleared off the second chair, dropping the stack of folders on top of the dented file cabinet. “Sorry, it’s been pretty quiet, but somehow the paperwork just keeps piling up.”

“Ugh, I don’t envy you that.”

“Yeah…I imagine a perk of running an underground operation is that you don’t have too many people to report to, huh?”

Maggie let out a real, genuine laugh at that. “I guess so. Though maybe it’s the universe’s way of making it up to me for the couple of years I spent on the force dealing with more paperwork than is humane.”

“Inhumane amounts of work for an inhumane organization?”

Maggie threw a hand over her chest. “You wound me.” Her expression grew serious then. “But yeah, it’s really…I mean, there were a couple people in the academy who were as naïve and hopeful as I was. Thought we could really make a difference. But especially these days…” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know. Nothing’s gonna change with these laws still on the books.”

Alex dipped her head, taking a sip of her now-sweetened coffee. “I get that. I thought working in a hospital would be good, you know? I mean, hell, we take an oath to heal people, not harm them. But apparently not everyone got counted in there.”

Maggie nodded in understanding. “Well I know maybe it wasn’t the goal all along, but I think you’re doing pretty amazing work here.”

Cursing her cheeks as she felt them warming under the praise, Alex tried to shrug it off. “We do what we can. I’m really lucky that Cat was willing to fund it and that so many of the local alien healers and medics were willing to volunteer with me and help me learn all the kinds of medical lessons we didn’t get in school.”

“And I’m sure they’re glad to have someone around who knows how to work their way through the Earth medicine stuff that’s actually available.”

“Maybe. I hope.”

“Trust me, I’ve got an ear to the ground. People are grateful.”

“From what I learned during that background check, it sounds like they’re pretty damn happy about your services too.”

“It helps the ones who can pass.” Maggie shrugged. “I heard rumors about the youngest Luthor pretty much defecting from her family to design some sort of device that would cloak alien features, but I don’t know how much of that is speculation and how much is actually true.”

“Damn. If it’s true, that’s gotta make family dinners awkward.”

Maggie let out a dark laugh. “Probably.”

“So, uh, I guess if you’re still interested in being able to come and go here more freely, we’d just need paperwork on file for you. We keep everything under lock and key, and an intergalactic encryption code protects all our electronic files.”

“I guess you need my real information too, huh?”

A smile pulled up the edges of Alex’s mouth. “We tend to prefer it.”

“Alright. I guess I’ll finally be forced to admit my real age.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, here are the forms.” She pushed forward a few sheets of paper and a pen. “Once we’ve got everything in our system, we’ll burn the originals.”

“Sounds good.”

While Maggie’s pen scratched along the paper, Alex sat back and sipped at her coffee, every so often sneaking a glance up at the woman sitting across from her. Once or twice, a piece of hair would fall forward into her eyes and she would push it back with a little huff of annoyance. And Alex couldn’t help but find it adorable when the tip of her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth; Alex figured she was probably filling out the section that asked for all past places of work, including dates of employment. That section made everyone’s brains work a little harder as they dug old information out from the recesses of their memory.

Soon enough, Maggie handed back over the completed forms. “There you go.”

“Perfect. In a day or two you’ll be set to bring patients in and stay with them if they wish, even during our emergency-only hours.”

“That’s sounds great. Thanks so much for doing this for me.”

Alex shrugged. “I’m hoping I won’t be seeing you too much for business, but it’ll be good to have a system in place just in case.”

With a nod of her head, Maggie tilted her head to the side, a smile slowly pulling up the corners of her mouth. “So you’re saying you wouldn’t mind seeing me for non-business reasons?”

“What? I—that’s not—I didn’t say that,” Alex huffed, a flush staining her cheeks and chest pink.

“Oh…guess it’s just me then.” And with that, Maggie stood up, grabbed her coffee cup, and was off, leaving a dazed Alex blinking behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr @sapphicscholar (note the new handle to finally match my Twitter and AO3, feeling very fancy) and Twitter @sapphicscholar (though rather inconsistently)


End file.
